


Timeless

by TVDramaQueen



Category: The Creatures (Youtube RPF)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - High School, Cheating, Drinking, Dropping Out, F/M, Fights, First Time, High School, M/M, Multi, Partying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-24 16:58:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 47
Words: 36,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4927702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TVDramaQueen/pseuds/TVDramaQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James is just an ordinary student at Littleton High who's in love with the star football player, Kevin MacFarlane's boyfriend. Let's just say things take an odd turn for James.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys I've been working on this for about a week now and it's not done yet but I know how It's going to end and how I want to finish it but I thought I should start sharing some of this now while I finish! It's going to be a long one!

James Richard Wilson was your average teenager. He hated school and would rather hang out with his friends, he had a late night shift at some lousy gas station, and he loved his video games. He spent a majority of his time with his closest friends, Seamus, Jordan, Dan, Joe and Ze. They usually played video games, cruising around town in one of their trucks or partying.   
James had a pretty normal home life. Sure his parents were divorced but it never really seemed to affect him since he was older when it had happened. His mother knows to put up with James’ could care less attitude so they rarely fight like most teens and their parents do.

He gets along pretty well with his boss, has been trusted time after time with the late night shifts by himself even at the age of 16. He hates it but it’s good money.  
The one and only thing James wishes he could change is his relationship status. And he really wishes the one to change it would be a certain Russian in his History class.

Aleksandr Marchant.

He’s had a crush on him the 9th grade really. Since the day they met in modified math and he and Aleks had started fighting over James tapping his foot too much he’s always been fond of the boy. And if it weren’t for a certain Kevin McFarlane he would probably have the Russian by now.

Kevin was one of the star football players on the school’s team and when he had asked Aleks to the freshmen dance Aleks feel for the douche and they had been together since. James hated him, not just for stealing Aleks but because of what an asshole he was to everyone and how Aleks was so oblivious to it. He tried his best to be nice to the guy, for Aleks, but it’s so hard not to want to punch his lights out when every time they hang out he talks such shit about everyone and when they go out he treats everyone like he’s a god of some sort.

“I just wish he’d see what a prick Kevin is. He always says how he hates guys like him but he’s dating one!” James complains over lunch to Jordan. There sitting in the back of his pickup truck in the parking lot of the school, Seamus there as well but occupied more on his DS then the conversation, having heard it a thousand times.

“He’s never going to figure it out himself James you got to accept that.”

“But he’s such an amazing guy and he doesn’t deserve to be dating such trash.”

Jordan sighs “All you could do is tell him and I know you won’t because I’ve been saying that for the past 2 years and you still haven’t told him.”

“Because it’ll break his heart I could never do that to Aleks.”

“Yeah, because you looovve him.” Seamus snickers from behind his screen, earning a grape thrown at his face by James.

And it was true. James had often thought he loved Aleks. Even if they weren’t together that’s just how he felt. He’d do anything for the poor kid, he’d take a punch to the face even.  
James entered history, his last class of the day to of course run into Aleks saying goodbye to Kevin. Well you could say that or you could say trying to suck his tongue out of his damn throat until the bells rings. James groans quietly to himself, sitting down beside Joe and Spencer, one of Joe’s friends. And as always the bell rang a few seconds later and the teacher, Mr. Stevens, kicked Kevin out as the class was about to begin and Aleks walking over to sit behind James, blushing profusely.

Class was a bore as always and James spent the majority of the time fooling around with Aleks, Spencer and Joe more than taking the notes on the board for the test next Friday. He liked this, when he could just have Aleks to himself and not have to worry about Kevin being around. Finally the bell rang dismissing the students for the weekend though not really because there was still a football game that night that most of the students would be attending anyways.

“You’re going to come right?” Aleks asks as they head down the hallway towards their lockers. “I really don’t want to be stuck listening to Dex whine about how he doesn’t get the game for 3 hours.”

James shrugs. He hadn’t planned on it. Really he planned on going to Ze’s and getting drunk and playing video games with his friends.

“Come on it’ll be fun. Please James”

“Fine I’ll come.” He relents. And out of surprise Aleks, hugs him. That’s never happened before.

“Cool text me when your there and we can meet up.” He says before turning to head down the hall towards his locker, leaving James at his own.


	2. The Game

James heads home for the time between after school and the game and does his math homework, or attempts it more like it and then calls Jordan and all but forces him to come to the game with him tonight. He picks Jordan up around 6 and then Dan and Seamus as well, Joe busy with work and Ze don’t a huge fan of going out to these types of things.

“I can’t believe I’m going to this you owe me James.” Seamus grumbles in the back seat.

“It’ just a football game Seamus it’s not like he’s making you go to a pep rally or god forbid a school dance.” Dan remarks.

“Never bring up school dances again Daniel.” Seamus shouts back. Dan laughs, remembering the fresh men dance 2 years ago when Seamus got asked to dance by some pretty drama girl, panicked, and ran out of the gym faster the a cheetah. 

“It was one time Seamus it happens.” Jordan says after he catches his breath from laughing, fighting hard not to laugh again when Seamus crosses his arms in a pout.

“I don’t care it was embarrassing.”

Finally they arrive back at the school and before James has to send Aleks a message that their there he sees him in the stands waving at them. Well that and Dex covered in school colors happily bouncing in the stands beside Aleks.

The four guys head up towards where Aleks and the Britt are sitting to watch the game. James spends a majority of the game talking to Aleks more the watching the football. Seamus got stuck explaining the game to Dex since Aleks was mostly occupied with James. It was nice and even though Kevin didn’t get a single point Aleks seemed to enjoy himself. After the game the 6 started heading out, James telling Aleks they were heading over to Ze’s for a few hours of gaming before there curfews when Aleks asks if it’d be okay if he joined them.

“You’re not going with Kevin?” James asks 

“Well I mean I could but I rather hang out with you guys for awhile. I just have to drop Dex off and then I can meet you guys there.”

James shoots him a thumbs up before getting in his car.

“James, making some progress with Aleksandr I see.” Dan says when he closes the door

“Shut up he’s not going to break up with Kevin. He just wants to come play some games with his friends.”

“Sure.” Dan says before they start to pull out of the parking lot.


	3. Flirting & Fighting

The night went by pretty fast with lots of laughs and smiles before they were all heading home for the rest of their weekends. James spent his Saturday and Sunday both working and sleeping when he wasn’t. The next week went by pretty much the same, go to school, be bored, go home and play games until work. 

That Friday was their history test and James wasn’t very prepared but when was he? He ended up skipping his 4th period woods class to study. He was studying in piece with his head phones on under the stairs when a paper ball hit him. He looks up to see Aleks standing there smirking. He pulls his headphones out as the brunette heads down the stairs to meet him.

“Shouldn’t you be in class? You rebel.” James says when he comes to sit beside him.

“I should but I rather watch you try and learn all this stuff in an hour before our exam.”

“It’s not like you’re going to do any better did you even try to study?”

Aleks snorts “Well I tried but then I got bored and went to Kevin’s. At least I put in the effort.”

“I’m sure they’ll pity you and give you a D instead of an F when you tell them that.”

Aleks ends up staying there the whole period to try and study with James even though they both know its moot point. When the bell rings they head to class and just as there about to head in James catches a glance of Kevin heading their way. He taps Aleks to give him a heads up because this is usually when they have there before class make out session but Aleks just ignores him and heads into class. When they sit down Spencer and Joe both give James a look as if he should know why Aleks is suddenly avoiding his long time boyfriend.

Class ends and James knows he failed the test and so as a way to make himself feel better he decides he’ll go with Joe and Spencer to Steffani’s party to drown his sorrows. He’s packing up at his locker when Aleks starts approaching.

“Hey if you’re looking for Kevin I think he just walking by.”

“No I wasn’t. Hey what are you doing tonight?”

James gives him a confused look. This is the second Saturday in a row Aleks has tried to avoid going with Kevin and instead go with James.

“I was going to go to Stefani’s party. Her parents are closing the pool next week for the winter so she wanted to have one last pool party for the year.”

Aleks nods

“You wanna come?”

“Yeah actually that would be great. Pick me up at 8?”

James nods “Okay cool see you in a few hours.”

When he gets home he sits in the backyard with his puppy Ein and contemplates what just happened. Why would Aleks all of a sudden start choosing to hang with friends over his boyfriend? Maybe he does want to break up with Kevin. Maybe Kevin cheated on him. Or maybe Aleks is finally seeing Kevin’s true form.

James picks up Aleks 5 minutes before 8 and then they go and meet Spencer and Joe at the party. There old buddy Sp00n is also there, just because he’s 21 now and old enough to buy booze so Stefani didn’t have to try and sneak into her parents liquor cabinet. The parties loose and fun and James get’s pleasantly drunk knowing Spencer offered to drive them home since he doesn’t really drink too much. He and Joe disappear some point during the night but James suspects they went off with some girls somewhere.

He starts to feel pretty tired around 1:30 and goes to grab Aleks and start rounding up the other two idiots so they can go when he finds Aleks in the bathroom looking like he’s about to cry over something. He’s looking down at his phone and James thinks it might have to do with a certain football player.

“Hey, you doing okay Aleks?”

Aleks freezes as he didn’t notice James enter the bathroom with him. “Yeah I’m okay.” He says whipping his eye that’s threatening to spill tears. “What’s up?”

“I uh, think I’m ready to pack it in. You ready?”

“Yeah sure, let’s go get Spenc and Joe.” He says, shuffling by James quickly as if to hide the fact that he was so upset.

They find Joe and Spencer giggling about something in the backyard and James waves them over and lets them know there leaving. He shouts a good bye to Stef on their way out the door and then they load into the car. Spencer drives until they get to his house and then James takes over, knowing now after seeing Aleks upset moments earlier his head is clear enough to drive. Joe falls asleep on the highway back to Aleks’ place so James picks that time to bring up the bathroom incident.

“So why were you so upset earlier, when I came into the bathroom?”

“It’s nothing James.” He mumbles 

“It obviously wasn’t Aleks. You can tell me I’m not going to laugh at you or something.”

“James, just drop it.”

He huffs “I’m not going to drop it my friend was practically crying in a cheerleader’s bathroom and I doubt it was for no reason.”

“James seriously, just fucking drop it I don’t want to talk about it!”

James looks at Aleks who looks like he might punch him if he keeps bugging him so he does drop it, for now. Aleks doesn’t even say good bye when he drops him off; slams the door and runs to his front door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I'm just curious if any of you would be upset if I use a few ex Creatures? I know I used Kevin who technically isn't a creature now but would it bother people if I put Sly or Gassy or Chilled in this? If not let me know because I'm hoping to use them!


	4. You Can Call Me Sly

Aleks ignores his texts for the rest of the weekend. He tries calling on Sunday but he’s sent straight to voice mail. He get’s Jordan to even try calling him but he ignores his call as well. 

The whole week at school Aleks ignores him. In history he goes and sits at the front away from James in order to avoid him. The only time other than that he sees Aleks all week is with Kevin every day before and after school where Kevin usually parks close by to James and his friends but even when James waves or shouts hello to him he ignores him still.

On Friday the guys go to the shitty old arcade that Dan and Spencer work at to hang out. Mostly because Dan and Spencer sneak them free tokens to play the games so they don’t have to pay for them. Jordan even brings his girlfriend Monica. They’ve been dating since sophomore year. She’s nice but at times James has expressed that she doesn’t suit him. Jordan’s laid back and a party guy where Monica loves school and learning and in her spare time is involved in any extracurricular activities that give her a higher chance of getting into Yale. 

Joe and Jordan and Monica go off to go play games while James and Seamus stick with Spencer and Dan to talk about James’ little situation.

“And you’re sure you didn’t do something besides that to piss him off?” Seamus asks knowing James reputation for being an asshole at times when he’s drunk.”

“I’m positive. And I’ve apologized over text like 10 times now. I’d do it in person to but he won’t even look at me guys.”

James sighs because he knows his friends can’t think of much else to help him and he drags Seamus off to come play Donkey Kong with him. James plays two rounds before he hands the controls off to Seamus and just decides to watch because he knows watching his Irish friend get aggravated will brighten his mood.

“Fucking hate this bullshit.” Seamus grumbles after his 20th try and shoves another token in, determined to get something out of the game.

Just as he’s about to lose again he hears someone behind him. “Hey you’re actually kind of good at this.”

Seamus turns thinking its James trying to make him feel better but who he sees is definitely not James.

“I’m Eddie, my friends call me Sly.” The young Latino says with a smile bright as ever. Seamus is literally speechless. Luckily James is somewhat of a good friend.

“This is Seamus and I’m James. He’s just angry he can’t seem to crack this stupid game.”

Sly laughs and god is it gorgeous. “That’s funny.”

“Oh hey I think I know you, you’re new to our school right?” Monica says as she and Jordan come up to help rescue poor Seamus from being in such awe at the man in front of him.

“Oh yeah my dad’s job transferred so me and my mother and sister moved here with him. You go to Littleton High to right?” He asks Seamus and James. James nods.

“Yeah uh, we go there too.” Seamus stutters out. 

Sly’s about to say something else when his phone goes off. “Oh shoot my rides here. It was nice meeting you guys hope to see you around school.”

As Sly heads off Jordan can’t help but laugh. “I think Seamus’ got a bit of crush.”

“No!” He attempts to defend himself but knows it’s no use as he can feel himself blushing.

They hang at the arcade awhile longer before they all go their separate ways for the weekend. James hangs out with Joe again on Saturday and on Sunday offers to help his mom do some errands.


	5. An Interesting Form Of Forgiveness

On Monday he gets to school late and is running down the hall to try and make it to Math before he get’s detention for interrupting Mrs. Gale’s lesson, when he turns the corner Aleks is there.

“Hey James can we uh, talk” He says sounding hopeful. James is in actual shock because Aleks has been ignoring him for exactly 9 days. Not that he’s been counting.

He has.

They go into the cafeteria since it’s so close by and all the kids with a free period hang out in there so the principal won’t thinking there skipping class even though they are.

“So I just wanted to say I’m sorry I over reacted about the whole thing last weekend.”

“No I should be apologizing. I was prying and I shouldn’t have been it wasn’t my place to do so.”

After the two shared their apologies Aleks walked James back to his class where he hoped he wouldn’t get detention. He gave him a little nudge as a goodbye before heading his own way to class. James felt so much better but wondered why all of a sudden Aleks decided to forgive him.

The rest of the day was pretty lame except when Aleks and he went out for lunch and during history when they were together. After school James went with Joe and Dan to the movies and after he played CS GO with Aleks online. It was weird seeing Aleks playing games on a week night. Usually he went out with Kevin until his curfew and lied and told his parents they were studying. He didn’t bring it up though because he knew his relationship could be a touchy subject.

The next day at school he got a text from Aleks during his woods class to come meet him on the football field. He lied and told the teacher he was going to the bathroom and told Jordan to cover for him if he wasn’t back in a few.

He gets outside and finds Aleks sitting against the fence on the side of the field and jogs over to him. 

“Hey is everything alright?”

Aleks smiles “Yeah I just wanted to see you.”

James smiles back. God he wishes he could kiss that perfect smile off of Aleks face.

They talk awhile longer, about school and then about James job and Aleks’ asshole parents and then James sees that it’s almost time for 5th period and tells Aleks he’s got to go back to woods to clean up. He goes to say good bye and all of a sudden Aleks is leaning in and there kissing.

It’s the most perfect kiss James has ever had. It’s exactly how he imagined it, Aleks soft lips on his slightly chapped ones. He doesn’t want to pull away at all and when Aleks opens his mouth for entrance James knows he doesn’t want it to end either.

After minutes of them making out in the middle of the football field the bell rings forcing them to finally pull away. 

“Shit, sorry.” Aleks says, apologizing more for making him miss his whole class then for the kiss they just shared.

“Who gives a fuck.” He says with a laugh, offering Aleks a hand to get up from the grass “I’m sure Jordan cleaned it up for me.”


	6. The Diner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say at the beginning of this chapter that I don't hate Kevin I just used him as the asshole boyfriend because he's the only other person I ship with Aleks besides James (And Sly sometimes but I needed him to date Seamus)

He gets a text later that day from Jordan saying he ‘owes him two’ now. James is too happy to even care.

After school James is at his locker getting his stuff when Jordan walks up and smacks him on the side of the head.

“Ow you fucker what the hell?”

“I hate you. Why are you so happy? I just had to pretend you had a stomach virus for the last hour so it didn’t look like you were ditching.”

“Well...” James starts “I’m actually really glad you did because me and Aleks... kissed and stuff.”

“Wait what? You guys kissed!”

“Jordan, keep it down holy fuck the whole school doesn’t need to know!” James shouts back at him. 

He then explains what happened outside and how he doesn’t know if he and Aleks are a thing now or not because they didn’t have any time to talk about it and that he’s pretty sure he and Kevin are still together. After he and Jordan head out to the car and head to Jordan’s to work on their science project.

What James didn’t know is that when they were out in the field one of Kevin’s teammates had been walking by and caught them. And that he was also one of Kevin’s better friends on the team and was for surely going to tell him during practice that night.

The next day at school James was eating lunch in the back of Jordan’s truck with him, Seamus and Joe when Aleks decided to come join them. He seemed a little shy at first but once they got talking he seemed to loosen up. After lunch as Jordan, Joe and Seamus started to head inside Aleks pulled James aside to ask him if he wanted to get dinner later. Of course James said yes and offered to pick Aleks up around 5.

After school James went home to make himself look nice even though he knew Aleks wouldn’t care he still wanted to look good for him. He was hoping tonight while they were out Aleks would tell him he broke up with Kevin and wanted to be with him. 

James shouted a good bye to his mother on his way out, grabbing his keys and checking his beanie one more time before heading out the door.

“You have fun tonight sweetheart.” His mother shouts before he closes the door.

When Aleks gets into the car James asks where he wants to go and he just says somewhere that sells fries. James laughs, already knowing about Aleks weird eating habits and takes them to the diner that Joe works at knowing they make pretty good food there.

When they enter the diner both James and Aleks give a wave to Joe who’s behind the counter before taking a seat at a booth and waiting for a waiter. They eat and talk and James thinks things are going really well and he thinks maybe this is a date by the way Aleks keeps flirting with him and smiling all goofy at his jokes. 

The waiter comes by with the check once there done eating and James goes to pay while Aleks runs to the bathroom quickly. He’s pulling out his wallet from his back pocket when all of a sudden his name is being chanting in panicked voices and when he looks up Jordan and Seamus are running over to him looking like they just saw a ghost.

“What are you guys doing here?” James asked confused because he could have sworn Jordan hate plans with Monica tonight and Seamus had his tutor session every Wednesday.   
“Dude Kevin found out about you and Aleks and he’s going to kick your freaking ass!” Jordan tells him.

“We saw him and his buddies all get in his truck and were pretty sure there on their way over here to kill you!” Seamus points out.

As if on cue Kevin and three other players from the football team come walking in and when Kevin spots James he comes marching over.

“You!” He shouts “You think you can just steal my fucking boyfriend?”

James gulps and backs up slightly “Listen Kev-“

“No, fuck you! I don’t have to listen to a thing you say. Aleks is mine and you’re going to pay for touching him!”

Right then he takes swing a James and gets him right in the cheek. He continues to hit James while his other friends hold off Jordan and Seamus. Joe runs into the back to call the cops and get his manager. 

Aleks comes out of the bathroom to find Kevin and James scrapping on the floor, James in much worse shape the Kevin, and starts screaming for Kevin to leave him alone. He grabs him by the shoulder and with all his power rips him off before pushing him out the door, cussing him the whole way out. His other goons drop their hold or Jordan and Seamus and follow.


	7. Aftermath

Jordan and Joe drag James out to the back where they were parked to make sure he’s okay and check how bad he got his ass kicked.

“Guys I’m fine really it’s just a split lip.”

“And two black eyes and a possible broken nose.” Joe chips in. “Dude that was freaking crazy.”

Jordan continues to exam James face for more damage to decide if he should go to the hospital or not. Just then a familiar face shows up.

“Dude what the fuck just happened?” 

It was Eddie or Sly as he preferred to be called. He was at the diner during the fight and was extremely confused to what just happened.

“James kissed Aleks, who is technically Kevin’s boyfriend still, and he’s insane and kicked his ass.” Jordan tells him.

“Do you want me to take a look at his nose? I used to volunteer at a homeless shelter back in Florida and we used to get a lot of homeless guys coming in with broken noses.”

Jordan steps aside and let’s there new friend take a look.

“Nah I think he just nailed you pretty good. You’re pretty lucky he didn’t break a rib or something.”

James nods and groans out of frustration. This was supposed to be his first date with Aleks not the first time he got his ass kicked. He’s also mad he’ll have to explain this to his mother and that Aleks had to leave with Kevin and not him.

They stay awhile longer while Jordan convinces the police they don’t want any trouble and to not press any charges and Joe get’s James a root beer float on the house. As he’s waiting for Jordan he notices Sly and Seamus talking, well Sly talking and Seamus listening like a love sick puppy. He rolls his eyes; Seamus has got to learn how to talk to people he’s attracted to or this is going to turn into another freshmen dance situation.

James and Joe explain to his mother what had happened and she’s upset he didn’t press any charges but understands him at the same time. She gets him an ice pack and he goes upstairs to cuddle with Ein and try and forget what just happened. He gets a few texts from Aleks saying he’s sorry what had happened but after 3 or 4 texts Aleks stops replying.  
James goes to school the next day and gets some strange looks and is excused from gym by a worried looking Mr. Davis. Since he isn’t participating in gym he and Jordan decide to finish their science project in the cafeteria, where they run into Dan.

“Jeez what happened to your face James?”

“Don’t ask.” Jordan grumbles, sick of explain it to everyone all day.

“Got in a fight with Kevin. Long Story. Where have you been anyway I haven’t seen you all week?” James replies.

It was true Dan had been pretty AOL all week really. The last time James had really seen him was last Friday at the arcade.

“Well actually for once I have a love life to talk about with you guys.” Dan says as he sits down at the table with the two.

“Wait you have a girlfriend?” Jordan asks 

“Yes I do, thank you very much. Her name is Liz and she’s amazing. She’s smart and pretty and likes video games. I met her at the arcade on Sunday and we’ve been hanging out since.”

“Well congratulations.” Jordan says, leaning across the table to give Daniel a pat on the back.

After finding out about Dan’s new girl James and Jordan decided to come meet her after school at the arcade. Joe couldn’t make it because of work and Seamus said he had plans.

“I bet you it’s with that Eddie guy.” Spencer says as he’s poor the two there drinks. “I saw them talking today outside the theatre before class this morning.”

“Seamus definitely has a crush on him that’s for sure.” James tells them with a chuckle. “He blushes redder then a tomato every time he’s around him.”

“I didn’t even know Seamus liked guys.” Spencer says

“I think he bats for both teams if you know what I mean.” James says “Kind of like Joe.”

Spencer freezes “How’d you know-“

“He used to go out with guys all the time in 10th grade but he stopped when he couldn’t seem to find a connection with any of them.” James reveals.

Spencer slowly nods. Luckily at that moment Dan and Liz walk in, interrupting Jordan and James from prying any further on Spencer’s early conversation topic. 

That night James doesn’t hear from Aleks again but the next day at school he does still sit with him in history. He doesn’t say a lot but he doesn’t seem mad at James at all. The bells rings, announcing the week is over and it’s officially the weekend. The speaker blares letting everyone know about the football game that night. Aleks seems to flinch when it’s brought up which makes James question him a little in his head but doesn’t want to pry in his business.

James ends up going home to himself to rest his poor face for the night, bailing on Spencer and Joe who were going to the game and Jordan, Dan and Ze who were doing video game night at Ze’s. He just lies around most of the night and watches bad movies with his dog and listens to his mother talking on the phone to one of his relatives for hours. She ends up heading upstairs around 9:30 for her bath and James slowly drifts off on the couch. He wakes up abruptly an hour later to the door bell ringing repeatedly and gets up and heads towards the door.  
When he opens it his heart drops. Aleks is standing there, trying his best not to cry, and with a nice shiny black eye showing nicely under the porch light.

“Aleks what the hell happened?” James says pulling him inside from the cold November night.

Aleks doesn’t really answer. He tries but he’s just too worked up to say much. James takes him into the kitchen and grabs the same ice pack he was using 2 days ago and puts it against Aleks eye and holds him close. After Aleks finally calms down James presses a small kiss to his soft hair before asking him again what happened.

“After the game Kevin wanted to go to some stupid victory party and I said I wanted to just go home and he got really angry and hit me and kept trying to smack my head against the passenger window but I got out and ran here because you’re the only other person I could tell who I trust. And he kept saying I was such a whore for cheating on him with you even though all we did is kiss and it was all just really scary. And I’m sorry I had to come here I’m sure you were busy I just didn’t know where else to go.”

James nods and rubs Aleks back. “It’s okay Aleks I’m here you don’t have to worry I won’t let Kevin hurt you again.”

Aleks shivers in his hold but nods against his shoulder.


	8. Sharing the News

They stand there for awhile longer before James mentions Aleks getting some rest and Aleks begs him to let him stay the night as he really doesn’t want his parents to find out what had happened.

“Should you at least let them know where you are?” James says as he grabs an extra pillow from the linen closet.

“I’ll tell Dex to tell my mom I’m at a friend’s.” He says before pulling out his phone to go call Dexter.

While on the phone James popped in on his mom to let her know his friend was spending the night. She really didn’t question it so he didn’t bother telling her why and went to help Aleks get comfortable in his room.

“Wait, where are you going?” Aleks asks when James goes to leave after tucking him in.

“To the guest room?”

“You should stay here. Please.” Says Aleks, the last part in a whisper.

James nods and climbs in beside Aleks. He makes himself comfortable trying not to be touching Aleks to much in case he wasn’t interested but Aleks rolled over and rested his head on his shoulder and wrapped his arm around James middle.

“Everything’s going to be okay. You’re safe here.” James mumbles into his hair before they both drift off to sleep.

Aleks ends up not wanting to leave the next day. He’s too worried his parents will freak over his black eye and he doesn’t want Kevin to find him and hurt him more so he spends the whole day with James playing video games until he had to go to work and then his mother said she would keep Aleks company while he’s at work. When he had told her that morning what had happened before Aleks had woken up she had felt so bad for the boy she had made him pancakes to make him feel better.

James got home that night to find Aleks asleep in his bed once again and crawls in beside him, placing a light kiss on his cheek before closing his own eyes to try and get some rest. He lies there a moment before he feels Aleks shift and roll over and kiss him, this time on the lips. They share a few kisses before Aleks pulls back and they both look into each other’s eyes for a moment before one of them speaks.

“I really like you James.”

“I really like you too” James replies, leaning in again when Aleks does to share another kiss, and another, and another until their clothes are being shed and moans and groans are being muffled there best, trying not to wake James mom. They end up falling asleep with Aleks in James arms, feeling safer than ever.

The next morning James wakes up to the loud sound of his stupid friends chatting with his mother downstairs and probably eating all the breakfast his mother had made for him and Aleks. He groans and gives Aleks a quick kiss and a squeeze before leaving him to sleep to go see what his friends wanted.

He’s greeted downstairs by Ze, Jordan, Joe and Dan who all decided to pop by unexpectedly. This had happened before and James was pretty sure that every time it had was because of his mothers cooking.

“There you are.” Jordan announces as James enters the kitchen “You didn’t come to Stefani’s party last night.”

“Yeah I had to work asshole.”

“Well you usually would have stilled popped by for a bit. What the hell?” Jordan complains

“I was with Aleks okay.”

“Oooooo.” Ze coos, earning a laugh from Dan and James’ mother.

“He’s been here all weekend.” She tells them as she heads out of the room. James groans, why did she have to do this to him.

“He has? Mr. James Richard Wilson, what are you getting yourself into?” Dan scolds.

“Nothing. Aleks and he are over anyways. Something happened on Friday and Aleks doesn’t want anything to do with him anymore.”

“What happened?” Ze questions

Just then Aleks interrupts, creeping into the kitchen with his still fading black eye in tow “Nothing happened. We broke up, that’s it.”

All three of the other guys don’t question after that, knowing what had actually happened just from looking at Aleks’ face.

After their done eating Ze and Dan leave to go to the mall so Dan could get Liz a birthday gift but Jordan decided to stay behind.

“So, I’m guessing now that Kevin is out of the picture this is happening now?” He states pointing between the two love struck idiots, who both blush remembering the night before. “Alright then. I’m out of here, please remember protection.” He adds in as he heads out the door, leaving the two flustered like crazy.


	9. Joe & Spencer

Aleks finally goes home that night because his parents demand him to. James gives him a ride home and offers to come in with him but Aleks says he’s fine and gives James a quick kiss and a thank you for letting him stay the past two nights before he exits the car. James watches him walk up to the porch and then heads home to get ready for work the next night.

The next morning Aleks texts James complaining he still has his black eye and can’t figure out how to cover it. James, being the great boyfriend he is, enlists Stefani to come to Aleks’ house with him in the morning to help.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this for you. You owe me Wilson.” She grumbles. ‘I owe a lot of people’ James thinks to himself as he rings the doorbell, awaiting Aleks to come to the door.

Dex answers instead but leads them up to Aleks room explaining he was to scared it might be Kevin to answer the door. Once upstairs Stefani pulls out her makeup kit, or box is you wanted to be more accurate, and starts trying to find the best match to Aleks skin tone to help cover the dark circle around his right eye. He thanks her after and then the four of them go and grab coffee, James’ way of repaying Stefani, and then head into school.

The week goes rather smoothly and James is pretty sure Kevin hasn’t bothered Aleks at all; at least Aleks hasn’t said anything. They end up hanging out almost every night at James place, playing video games and awaiting their black eyes to fade so they can go out without getting weird looks from everybody. On Friday however Aleks is leaving with his parents to go out of town for Thanksgiving so James has the weekend to himself and intends on spending it with his friends. He, Jordan, Stefani, Dan, Seamus, Sly, Joe and Spencer all decide to go to the Foo Fighter concert that Saturday before thanksgiving for some fun. 

After the concert Dan has to drive James and Joe home and when there in the car Joe confesses something.

“I think I like Spencer.”

Both James and Dan pause.

“What do you mean you like him? Like as more than a friend?” Dan asks. He sees Joe nod in the mirror. “Well have you told him?”

“Not exactly.”

“What does that mean?” James asks

“Well remember when we went to that pool party at Stefani’s and we disappeared for a long time? Well we were making out behind the pool shed.”

James jaw drops “We thought you guys were off with some girls! Dude!”

“We haven’t really talked about it but today after school when we went to Dan’s to get ready and you guys were all changing we ended up making out in Dan’s sisters room and Sly caught us.”  
“You made out in my baby sisters bedroom!” Dan shouts in disgust. “She’s like 12!”

“Well where else were we supposed to? Your parents room?”

“Yes, anywhere but in my sister bedroom!”

James is laughing hysterically by now in the back seat “Dude Sly must be traumatized by now. He went from being this nice kid who did charity work to witnessing a fight and now two of his dude friends making out!”

Joe blushes. “Well now I don’t know if I should like ask him out or what. I mean he must like guy’s right? I mean we’ve made out twice now.”

“He did used to have a girlfriend in the 9th grade but remember she broke up with him for some unknown reason.” James adds

“Do you think that’s why? Because he likes dudes?”

“Probably.” James tells him.

They drop off Joe and then James is dropped off as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys sorry this chapter is kind of short and sort of a filler but it's needed for the story later on! I'm Almost done this fic and then after I'm hoping to do something else NOVAHD if you have any more suggestions!


	10. Presents

The holiday goes by fast and then it’s December and it’s even harder to get time alone with Aleks. They still manage and get a lot of time in for making out and playing video games before the break when James goes to visit his dad.

“Did you get Aleks anything yet?” Seamus asks as there wandering through the mall. Seamus trying to find something to buy for Sly that says I want to be more then best friends but isn’t too obvious either.

“He said he wanted a puppy.” James says

“You’re going to get your boyfriend of 1 month a puppy for Christmas?” Spencer says in disbelief. 

“Well I mean, maybe. Are puppies like, expensive? Because I still got to get all you guys gifts plus my mom, my grandma and my dad.”

Seamus snorts “Just get him one from the pound. They’ll only charge you to get it shots.”

The three continue to shop for awhile, Seamus finding the perfect thing for Sly, a pizza hoodie. And knowing the Latino’s personality Spencer and James both agreed he would love it. James got Jordan a stupid cat t-shirt and Dan a new batman figure and Spencer got Joe a new Star Wars poster for his room. After shopping the guys wanted to stop and get a bite to eat at the food court. As James was ordering his food Spencer and Seamus waited with there already ordered food when Seamus got a text from Sly.

“So you two still aren’t dating?” Spencer asks.

“No,” Seamus huffs, replying to Sly’s text “We’ve hung out and stuff and we went out a few times but I don’t even know if he likes me that way. What if I put a move on him and I find out he’s into girls! I can’t take get turned down by him he’s to special to me.”

Spencer nods “You’ll never know though unless you ask. And if you never know you’ll spend the rest of your life always wondering.”

Seamus groans but he knows his friend is right. 

He comes up with a plan that on Monday, the last week before Christmas break, he’ll bring it up to Sly. He spends the whole day at school worrying and being nervous about it, rehearsing in the bathroom mirror hundreds of times before the day is done.

“Dude, he’s not going to turn you down.” Aleks says as he, Seamus and James exit the school that cold day. Seamus sighs.

“But he could! He could have another boyfriend or even a girlfriend for all we know! What if he’s only into other Latino dudes?”

James chuckles. “Yeah, because he hits on me so often.”

Aleks laughs but elbows James in the side. The two go their separate way to James car while Seamus waits around to catch Sly. The chipper boy comes out of the school 10 minutes later and smiles brightly when he sees Seamus is still there.

“Hey Seamus! Were you waiting for me? Sorry I took so long my math teacher wanted to talk to me about switching into the honors program.”

“Oh wow,” Seamus says in somewhat shock “I didn’t know you were that good at math.”

“Oh yeah it’s like my best subject. Anyways she took forever talking about it even though I said yes right away so that’s why I took so long. What did you want to talk about?”  
Seamus froze. All of a sudden his nerves doubled as he now felt his intelligence wasn’t high enough to be Sly’s boyfriend. Seamus wasn’t much of a school smarts guy and if Sly was he probably only wanted to date guys, or girls, who were smart as well.

“Oh nothing I just thought maybe you might want to do something tonight?”

Sly nods enthusiastically as always “Okay let me just go home to quickly let out Chef and then I can meet you at your place.”

Seamus get’s home and ignores his mother asking how his day was in order to rush downstairs to call James.

“Dude did you talk to Sly? Are you guys together now?”

“No! He came out from school telling me all about how he’s in advance math now and it freaked me out. I’m not good enough to be his boyfriend I can’t tell him now.”  
“Shut up Seamus you are so! Just because you aren’t book smart doesn’t mean you aren’t smart. And Sly would be lucky to have such an amazing, caring and thoughtful guy as a boyfriend. Just tell him or you’ll regret it all winter break!”

Seamus grunts “Fine.”

So Sly comes over and they play video games until Seamus’ mother makes them come up for supper and then they head right back downstairs to play more video games.  
“Seamus, stop trying to drown me.” Sly whines even though he’s smiling right beside Seamus on the basements couch. Their playing BattleBlock, one of Sly’s favorites to play when he comes over to Seamus’.

They keep playing for another couple of levels when Sly starts to yawn.

“What time is it?” He says, reaching into his back pocket to find his phone. “Oh shoot it’s already 10 I got to get going Seamus.”

Seamus nods and offers to walk Sly out to his car. Sly takes the offer and the two head outside.

“I had fun tonight.” Sly says with a smile when they reach his car.

Seamus smiles back “I had fun too.”

They stand there staring at each other for awhile when Seamus builds up all the courage he’s ever had and leans in to kiss Sly. His lips are a lot softer then he imagined and he thinks it’s going well. That thought is confirmed however when he feels Sly start to kiss back and wrap his arms around his neck. They continue to kiss until they both feel like they need to pull away for a breath of air.

“I’ll see you tomorrow I guess.” Sly stutters out nervously

“Oh uh, yeah I’ll see you tomorrow too.” Seamus stammers back before turning around and heading back into the house and mental freaking out for the rest of the night about what just happened.


	11. Big Steps

“So you’ll keep an eye on Aleks while I’m gone?” 

James had been begging Joe all day for the simple favor. It wasn’t as simple as he made it sound however. James would be gone for two weeks during their break to visit his dad and he was worried Kevin might try and bug Aleks while he was away. However he didn’t want Aleks to know he had someone looking after him and so Joe would almost have to be spying on him. For two straight weeks.

“Why can’t Dex? They live together.”

“Because he’s going back to England for the break.” James declares. 

Joe groans. He knows he can’t get out of this. James has way to much dirt on him from over the years of partying and now his secret crush on Spencer.

“Fine. But I’m not going over there on Christmas day. My parents would kill me if they found me sneaking out during a family event.”

James thanks him, gives him a bro hug and then heads off down the hallway to go meet Aleks for lunch.

The last day of school approaches and James says his goodbye to Aleks by taking him out to dinner for Mexican food and then going back to Aleks’ so they could exchange presents.  
“So what I got you couldn’t really be wrapped so you have to close your eyes when I bring it in.” James tells Aleks.

“James what the heck did you get me?”

“It’s a surprise dummy. Go wait in the living room.” James tells him. Aleks relents and goes in the house. His parents aren’t home, having gone to one of his relatives, and Dexter went over to Stefani’s with some of the others to go get drunk off of eggnog. Aleks sits in the living room and covers his eyes knowing if he doesn’t James will be upset. He’s frankly pretty excited because this is the first year he and James will be a couple for Christmas. Usually Kevin just bought him a stupid CD or DVD so this was pretty exciting.

James comes back in the front door and locks it behind himself before coming into the living room and letting the small creature out of its kennel so it can approach Aleks.

“Okay, open your eyes.”

Aleks gapes when he sees the small, fluffy, black puppy in front of him.

“You always say when you’re playing with Ein how you wish you had a dog so I thought I’d get you one. She doesn’t have a name yet but she’s partly house trained and potty trained and-“  
James is interrupted by Aleks pressing his lips against his own. When he pulls away he gives him a big hug before leaning down to pick up the puppy.

“Oh my gosh James this is the best present anyone has ever got me. I love it.” Aleks says with huge grin. His grin widens when the puppy starts pressing kisses to his face,

“I’m going to name her Mishka.” He announces. James smiles

“Well I’m glad you like her.

“I love her.” Aleks says before turning his attention back to James “And I love you too.”

That was the first time Aleks had ever said that to James. It was a big moment in their relationship but James was glad he said it finally because he’s wanted to say it for the past two years.

“I love you too Aleksandr.”

Aleks goes to get James gift after which is two tickets to a wrestling match in New Jersey the upcoming weekend.

“I thought maybe you and your dad could go while you’re visiting him. Because I know how much you love wrestling.”

“Aleks this is great. Thank you so much.” James says giving him a kiss on the cheek before joining him on the couch with Mishka. They end up watching some bad Christmas movie and playing with the dog until she runs off to explore the house and they end up making out on the couch until Dex comes home and interrupts them.


	12. Snowy Night

That same night Seamus was at home mopping about not having a proper good bye with Sly before the break. Sure neither were going anywhere for the holiday’s but it was still hard to connect with friends when you had relatives visiting. Seamus had accepted the fact he would just have to give Sly his gift after the break when he got a text from the man himself, asking if he wanted to meet up at the park by Sly’s house to talk.

Seamus told his mom he was just running to the store before sneaking out and driving over to Sly’s house and parking across the street where the park was.  
He see’s Sly sitting on the sand of the snow box trying to catch snowflakes with his tongue like a child. ‘And he’s an advanced student’ Seamus says to himself with a snort.

Sly smiles when Seamus comes to sit beside him. “Hey you made it.”

“Indeed I did. What’s up?”

Sly shrugs “I just wanted to see you for a bit. And talk and stuff.”

Seamus hums in agreement “And what did you want to talk about?”

“Us.”

“Oh.” Seamus says looking away from Sly and down at his knees as there were slowly getting covered in snow. “What about us?”

Sly fidgets slightly “How I want us to be...”

“Be what?”

Seamus was preparing himself for the worst here, knowing that Sly was probably about to tell him he wanted them to just be friends.

“A couple.”

Seamus pauses before turning his head back to look at Sly again “Wait, you want to date?”

Sly nods trying to look anywhere but Seamus obviously nervous himself.

“Well that’s good ‘cause I kind of want to be your boyfriend to.” Seamus states.

“You do?”

“Well yeah. I have since the day we met at the arcade. I just always thought I wasn’t good enough to be with someone as perfect as you.”

Sly blushes “Oh please, like I’m perfect.”

“You are.” Seamus tells him, earning Sly’s blush to darken.

“I am not. Just yesterday I fell down the stairs trying to make it to English on time.”

Seamus laughs “You did not.”

“I did! Dan was there he probably has video of it, the asshole.” 

Seamus laughs some more but suppresses it after a moment to finish talking to Sly “Well besides that your still pretty perfect.”

Sly leans in then and he and Seamus share another kiss, a lot slower and gentler then the first one, if that was even possible. After a moment they pulled away and Sly reached behind him to pull out a small wrapped up box.

“I almost forgot. I got you this for Christmas. It’s just a little something because I still haven’t gotten a job since we moved out here and didn’t have much to spend.”

“You didn’t have to get me anything Sly.” He says as he opens the small present. Inside is a little rhinestone link Mario key chain.

“It’s because I know you like Mario and because when we met you were playing that Mario game in the arcade. Well Donkey Kong but its pretty close.”

Seamus smirks “Well thank you Sly this is really great.” Seamus then passes his gift to Sly. Sly opens it and beams brightly when he sees the pizza sweater. “I’m guessing you like it.”

“I love it this is the greatest creation ever.” He proclaims before pulling off his current grey hoodie to throw on his new one. “This is the best Seamus thank you.” He says leaning over again to give Seamus a quick kiss.

The two stay at the park awhile longer to talk until Sly’s fingers start to get cold as he forgot gloves once again. Seamus walks him back across the street, giving him a goodnight kiss once they reach his front door. When they pull apart there meted with the stare of Sly’s sister in the window, smirking as Sly groans knowing she’s going to go tell his mother all about Sly’s new boyfriend. They say there goodbye’s and Seamus heads home to deal with his own mothers questioning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on tumblr @ mitch-marners.tumblr.com ! :)


	13. Not Something You Want To Hear

The break goes by quickly and soon enough the gang is back at school. Dan comes back with a broken arm unfortunately from a snowboarding accident when at Liz’s cousin’s cabin. The first Friday after the break there’s already a party happening and most of the group intends to go. Except for Dan because of his arm.

James spends most of the night trying to get Aleks to dance even though he knows the Russian wouldn’t dream of it. He catches Sly and Seamus making out in a closet as well when he’s trying to find a bathroom and snickers to himself at the idiot’s idea of keeping their relationship a secret.

“Do you guys know where there’s a bathroom in this place? It’s like a freaking mansion.” James asks as he enters the kitchen where Jordan, Sp00n, Dex, Ze and Ze’s new friend Anthony are occupying.

“Try upstairs I swear I heard some sophomore girls saying they were going up there to check there make up earlier.” Sp00n says. James nods, grabs another beer from behind Jordan and heads up the stairs.

He finds the master bedroom, which he’s pretty sure is bigger than the whole first floor of his house, and assumes there must be a master bathroom in such a luxurious home. He goes to open the door but finds it’s locked. Just then he starts to hear voices inside. He’s about to bang on the door and ask said people to get the fuck out when his drunk mind puts together they those noises aren’t from taking, there moans.

James goes rushing downstairs and finds Aleks looking for him immediately “Babe there’s two people totally having sex in the master bathroom!”

“Are you it’s not Sly and Seamus? I haven’t seen them in a while.”

“Nah I’m pretty sure they were watching Joe try and keg stand a few minutes ago.” James tells him before linking their hands together as they head back upstairs.

“Why are we interrupting this again? Aleks asks once there at the said bathroom’s door.

“Because I got to pee like crazy and this is the only bathroom I could find. Plus I really want to know who it is.”

Just as James was about to kick in the door he heard someone again, this time a clear distinction of talking.

“Monica stop, I think I hear someone outside the door.”

Both James and Aleks freeze. Monica was in the bathroom but Jordan was downstairs. 

“Oh shit.” Aleks murmurs before the two head back downstairs so Monica doesn’t know it was Jordan’s friends who caught her.

They don’t say anything to Jordan, agreeing they didn’t want to hurt him without knowing the whole story first. For the rest of the night though James felt like he needed to keep Jordan’s sprits up even though the other had no idea why his sprits would need lifting in the first place.

Spencer drives them home as always, Dex and Joe also joining for the ride.

“I’m going to have to start charging you guys for gas.” He grumbles as they pull out of the driveway and start to head towards Joe’s place.

James still has a frown upon his face. He can’t believe anyone would hurt Jordan like that. He was such a nice guy and always put other before himself and he treated Monica like a queen.

“Why does your boyfriend look like you just dumped his sorry ass?” An extremely drunk Dex asks Aleks.

Aleks takes a deep breath. “We saw something we shouldn’t have and he doesn’t know what to do about it.”

“More like heard.” James mumbles, slouching against the cold window.

“What did you hear?” Spencer asks chuckling “Was it Seamus and Sly going at it? Because oh my god, are they ever loud enough.”

James shakes his head no.

“Well then what?” Spencer repeats

“We heard Monica cheating on Jordan with some random guy.”

All the others in the car became silent. None of them could believe what they just heard.

“Are you serious?” Joe questions

“Yup. She’s the only Monica at the whole school so it had to be her.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

“I don’t know. He loves her so much it would kill him if he knew she didn’t feel the same way anymore.”

The others nodded in agreement.

“But at the same time if you don’t tell him and he finds out you knew he’ll hate you forever for not telling him.” Dex interrupts “I would know from experience.”

Aleks gives him a weird look “Yeah you cheat on a lot of your girlfriends at home?

“Fuck no asshole.” Dex retaliates “And besides I don’t do girlfriends.”

“Wait your gay?” Aleks asks in complete shock. All the others also look extremely confused.

“Uh duh. Aleks I have a boyfriend. We live together how do you not know that!”

Aleks get’s a regretful look upon his face. “Listen I’ve had a lot going on this year okay.”

“Yeah making out with Kevin and now making out with James.” Dex says with a smirk.

“So wait, does your boyfriend go to our school?” Joe asks curiously 

“No he lives back in England.”

That makes a lot more sense to why they never would have heard of him before James thinks. 

They drop Joe off and then Dex as Aleks decides he’s spending the night at James which gets a few cat calls out of Dex before he gets out of the car. They get back to James place and Aleks knocks out pretty quickly from the beer starting to where off. James lies there for a long time though and stares at the ceiling.

‘You owe me one’ keeps repeating in his head from the day he forced Jordan to come with them to the football game. Jordan was his best friend since he was 5 years old. He couldn’t hide this from him; he couldn’t do that to his best friend.


	14. Pursuing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapters kind of filler but you'll need it for later in the story. Right now it's look like this fic could be about 50 chapters! Hopefully will be done in the next two weeks as I'm starting a new job this week so I'm not sure how much time I'll have to write.

After another long weekend of work and hanging out with Aleks, school resumes with a bang. The bang being an old friend returning into their lives. This old friend being the one and only Max Gonzales.

Max used to be one of their close friends in the group. Seamus and he had been buddies since middle school when Max used to watch out for Seamus being bullied for being too much of a ‘nerd’. When he came to Littleton High he joined there group and hit it off with most of the guys until one day after a football game Max got a little too drunk and he and Jordan got into a pretty nasty fight resolving in the guys voting on Max not being allowed to hang out with them anymore. He got suspended a week later for starting a fight during a Biology test with another student and he transferred schools before his suspension was over.

And now he was back. Walking into James and Jordan’s chemistry class and sitting down right in front of them.

“Why is he back?” Jordan whisper/screams at James behind there text book. James shrugs because really he thought that max was definitely done with their little group and would never come back.

As soon as the bell rang Jordan practically sprinted out of the class so Max wouldn’t try and talk to him and ran straight for his gym class and prayed he wouldn’t have to see Max again that day. James obviously wasn’t as insane as his good friend and walked at a normal pace to his next class when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

He turned around and not surprisingly it was Max standing there in front of him.

“Listen James I know Koots isn’t going to expect my apology very easily but I have changed and I know I don’t’ deserve another chance with you guys but it would mean a lot if you gave me one.”

James nods “I can talk to Jordan but I can’t guarantee how he’ll react.”

Max nods in agreement before turning and heading towards his next class.

James doesn’t bring anything up to Jordan right away because he still hasn’t even told him about the Monica thing and he doesn’t need his friend having too much strain on him at once.  
As the month of January slowly dragged on Aleks and James started to get even closer and were spending almost all their free time together now. James loved it, finally having Aleks to himself. Aleks definitely felt the same way, if all the kisses and hugs were anything to go by.

Things were going well for Seamus and Sly as well and as the Valentines’ holiday was approaching Seamus was hoping they could maybe take there relationship to the next level.  
“How long did you and Aleks wait till, you know.”

“No I don’t know Seamus, I don’t read minds.” James grumbled. They were at Seamus studying for their upcoming math test that James really needed to cram for as he hadn’t once looked at a review for the unit, seeing as he had spent every night that week out with Aleks so far.

“When you guys... did it.”

“Like had sex?” James says looking up from his books and smirking when Seamus nodded nervously.

“I don’t want to do it to soon because what if he thinks that’s all I wanted out of him. But I don’t want to wait too long and have him think I’m not interested in him anymore.”

James hums in agreement “Well me and Aleks didn’t really wait at all so you can’t really follow my relationship as an example. Maybe you should talk to Sly about this and see what he wants.”  
Seamus nods “Yeah okay. I can do that. I think.” He says, mumbling the last part before turning back to his studies.

As the love holiday approached James started to get anxious. Not because of anything with Aleks, they were just going to rent a movie and probably fool around since his mom was out of town that weekend. No, what was really upsetting him we how excited Jordan was to spend the night with Monica as they were going skating and then for hot chocolate and then probably back to Jordan’s to ‘hang out’.

He had to tell him. He couldn’t let him go through that whole night thinking Monica and he were as happy as ever when really she probably would rather be with her booty call.

At the same time he was also getting wrapped into Joe’s stupid plans as he now ‘owed him one’ from getting him to look out for Aleks over Christmas break and was helping him put together an elaborate evening for him and Spencer as Spencer asked Joe if he wanted to spend the holiday together as he didn’t have any plans this year. Joe’s plan was to woo Spencer and hopefully confess his feelings to the boy finally.


	15. Max and Jordan's Reunion

Since James was so occupied with Joe and Jordan’s love life’s Seamus was forced to deal with his own problems. 

He was outside the school waiting for Sly to finish getting his stuff together so they could go home for the night, well to Seamus’ anyways. When Sly finally was ready to go Seamus mumbled out that maybe on Valentine’s Day Sly could come over and when Sly told him what a great idea that was he mumbled out that maybe he could spend the night.

Sly froze and stopped walking when he heard the second part. To be honest he technically was still a virgin and frankly Seamus was his first ever real boyfriend besides the few simple hook ups he’s had at parties back in Florida.

“You okay Sly?” Seamus asks when he sees Sly’s stopped walking beside him.

“Oh yeah I’m fine. And I’d uh... I’d love to spend the night on Valentine’s Day.” He says with a slight blush, hoping Seamus is catching on that this isn’t something he’s done before. Seamus smiles before lacing their fingers together as they continue to the car and murmurs ‘cool’ as they continue walking on.

James couldn’t hold it in anymore and he finally broke down and told Dan about what happened at the party. Dan was in shock and actually dropped the slush he was holding in his hand that was for the kid sitting at the stool beside James at the front table at the arcade. The kid immediately demanded a new one and once Dan served him he buggered off and Dan went right back to freaking out with James.

“And your sure it was his Monica?” He asks instantly, hoping it isn’t true for Jordan’s sake.

“She’s the only Monica at our school Dan. I can’t believe she would do that myself but she did and now I need to figure out how to tell Jordan without hurting him.”

Dan sighs “There’s no way you’re not going to hurt Jordan by telling him. She’s the first girl he’s ever been with so of course it’ll break his heart that she did that to him. But you need to tell him. He’s your best friend.”

James sighs “I know. I got to tell him before Valentine’s Day on Friday though because he’s got all these big plans for the two of them and I don’t want him to waste all that money on her for no reason.”

That Tuesday James attends Chemistry by himself knowing Jordan has a doctor’s appointment and as he sits down at their usual table Max sits down a joins him.

“No Jordan today?” He asks

“He had a doctor’s appointment.” He explains before the teacher shushes them as she begins her lesson. Its nice talking to Max a bit again to catch up, finding out he has a new girlfriend he met over the summer working at the lake and how he’s planning to start working at his dad’s car shop once the winter weather clears up. He also explains that he moved back to the school in hopes of patching things up with the group as he missed all the good times they used to have. James admits he hasn’t told any of the others that he’s back yet except Aleks just because they tell each other everything.

“Does Kevin know I’m back then too?” He asks.

Kevin was the one Max got into the fight with when he got suspended. James really didn’t know why the fight had broke out but he does know that it made Jordan and the others thing Max was even more of a fool at the time. 

“Actually Kevin and Aleks don’t talk anymore.”

“They broke up?”

“Well not exactly. I’ll explain it to you sometime.” James tells him.

After class however as James and Max are finishing their conversation about a prank they pulled in grade 9 and head out of the classroom James is stopped when he sees Jordan standing in the hall waiting for him and that he sees Max talking to James.

Jordan notices and instantly turns to leave and get away from James. James quickly excuses himself from talking to Max and starts trying to catch up to Jordan. He finds him sitting in the box of his truck out in the student parking lot and rushes over to explain himself.

“How could you?” Jordan says when he approaches. “You know I hate him James. I told you I never want him to be in our friend group again. Did you seriously think I was over it after two years, because I’m not James”

James sighs angrily “Jordan if I had known you would have been so angry I wouldn’t have let him sit with me today. He’s changed and he wanted me to tell you he has an apology for you if you’d listen. If you don’t want to that’s fine and I won’t talk to him anymore.”

This time Jordan sighs “Its fine, just don’t hang out with him again. I don’t want him worming his way back into our group just to screw us over again.”

“He really isn’t that bad Jordan.”

“You know how you feel about Kevin?” Jordan asks “That’s how I feel about Max.”

James can understand where he is coming from but he still feels bad that he won’t give Max another chance. After that the two head back into the school, both late for their 3rd period. James mostly stares at the wall during his English lesson because after how hurt Jordan was about Max he can’t imagine how he will feel about the news with his girlfriend. He starts to think maybe he should let Monica tell him herself.


	16. Valentines Day Part 1

Valentine’s Day finally arrives and Joe excited to spend the night with Spencer. Spencer is also really excited to hang with Joe and maybe finally share a special moment with him and confess his attraction to his best friend. The whole day at school the two are all happily and bubbly, which is nice because the rest of their friends are in rather bitter moods from the events leading up to today.

Seamus was super nervous about his date with Sly tonight and finally going all the way with him. James was passed annoyed when it came to trying to decide how to tell Jordan the secret he had been hiding. And Dan still had a broken arm that he wouldn’t shut up about.

As the final bell for the school day went Joe and Spencer headed back to Joe’s place where they ordered a pizza and watched some of the old Star Wars movies before his parents left to go to out for their own dinner. After Joe heard their car pull out of the driveway he finally decided to pull out some of his and James plans for wooing Spencer.

“Hey Spenc, I’ll be right back I’m going to go get something.”

“Okay.” Spencer says cheerily back to Joe. Joe rushes upstairs to his room where there’s a bouquet of roses and a large box of chocolates and a giant stuff bear with heart glasses. He grabs all three presents and brings them downstairs. Spencer looks up from where he had been watching the movie and smiles.

“What’s all this?” He says slightly confused.

“I got you a little Valentines gift.”

Spencer laughs “This isn’t little Joe. What’s this for?”

Joe shuffles awkwardly on his feet before shrugging shyly. Spencer shrugs himself before grabbing some chocolates out of the box and patting the spot beside him on the couch for Joe to rejoin him.

Joe does and smiles when Spencer offers him some of his chocolate.

They keep watching their movie but Joe’s paying more attention to Spencer then he is to the screen. He wants to tell him so bad but he’s worried Spencer will freak out and tell him he still only likes girls.

He’s staring at Spencer when Spencer turns after probably noticing him watching him and turns away quickly.

“Joe... why are you watching me?”

“Uh...” Joe says, silently panicking “You had chocolate on your face!” He says in a revelation of saving himself and reaches over to rub off the smudge of imaginary chocolate from Spencer’s face “There, all gone.”

Spencer flushes slightly before thanking Joe and turning back to the movie.

Spencer has to leave around 9:30 to babysit his sister’s son while she and her boyfriend go out for the night. Joe walks him up to the door, mostly because he has so much to carry now with the bear, flowers and half eaten box of chocolates.

“Well thank you Joe this was really nice.” Spencer tells him

“Well I mean I thought it would be nice since you didn’t have anyone to really celebrate with this year. Like a girlfriend or anything.”

Spencer shrugs. “I had a better time spending it with you anyways.”

And in that moment Joe notices Spencer slightly leaning in and he seals the gap between the two. It’s a short and simple kiss but its perfect and just what Joe’s been waiting to do for months.

Spencer pulls away first but just because he knows he needs to get going “You’re a good kisser.” He says with a grin before walking out the door and turning back to shoot Joe another smile when he notices he’s watching him get to his car.

“Drive safe Spenc!” He shouts when he gets into his car before heading back into the living room to finish his movie.


	17. Valentines Day Part 2

James was freaking out about Jordan and Monica and it was running his night with Aleks. They were making out on James’ bed when he broke off out of frustration of not being able to concentrate on his hot boyfriend because he couldn’t get the hurt sound of Jordan’s voice from the other day out of his head and how he never wanted to hurt Jordan like that again.

“Aleks I’m so sorry but I got to tell Jordan what happened. I can’t just let him think that she still loves him. I swear I’ll come right back and we can conitue where we left off. He says to his boyfriend, getting up and off of him and pressing a quick kiss to his cheek before grabbing his coat.

Aleks lets him know he understands and that he’ll be here waiting and James heads out, get’s in his car and speeds over to Jordan’s, hoping to catch him before he goes to pick up Monica.

He pulls up right as Jordan’s heading out the front door and sprints out of the car to meet him in front of the front steps.

“James what the hell? I thought you were hanging out with Aleks?”

“Jordan I have to tell you something.” James says; somewhat out of breathe from hurrying over to his friends place so fast “Monica’s cheating on you. Aleks and I heard her and some guy fooling around in the bathroom at that party after Christmas break. I had to tell you Jordan I couldn’t let her break your heart.”

Jordan stares at him in confusion for the longest time before he speaks.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Jordan we heard the whole thing we know it was her.”

“You’re just making this up trying to make me forgive you for what happened with Max.” He spits out. He then starts towards his truck, ignoring James’ presence and leaving for his date with Monica.

James growls. How could he not believe him? He decides the only thing left to do is follow Jordan to the rink and getting Monica to tell him herself.

He gets back in his car and follows Jordan’s truck to the rink and is in shock when they pull up and Monica’s there, flirting with some tall blonde guy that James recognizes from the football team. He looks into Jordan’s truck parked beside him and sees Jordan staring at the sight in front of him, heartbroken, before turning the key again and pulling out of the lot and driving back to his place. James sighs but at least now he knows, and starts back to his own place to get back to Aleks.


	18. Valentines Day Part 3

Sly was really nervous all night at Seamus’. He couldn’t sit still because he couldn’t stop his mind from wandering into what was going to happen later that night. And when Seamus’ mother announced she was going to sleep herself for the night Sly got even more nervous. It didn’t help that Seamus himself didn’t really seem to be all that confident either, he’d been stuttering and blushing like crazy all night.

As the clock hit 10:30 and the boys finished yet another crappy movie on Seamus’ basement couch Seamus nonchalantly puts his arm across the back of Sly’s shoulders. Sly instantly cuddles up to him because he loves his snuggles but then starts to feel the rush of nerves coming back as he realizes how late it’s getting and that Seamus is suddenly trying to make Sly more comfortable.

It’s not that Sly doesn’t want this to happen because he does, especially if it’s with Seamus he’s just really nervous and hoping it goes well because this is a big moment in their relationship.

“Hey so it’s kind of getting late...” Sly says stretching from his spot “Maybe we could head to your room?”

Seamus nods and get’s up and then helps Sly to his feet before leading them back to his room. The nice thing was his room was in the basement as well so at least they didn’t have to worry about waking Seamus’ mom.

They crawl into Seamus bed and start kissing and when that starts to get more heated Seamus starts shedding his shirt but when he goes for Sly’s he stops him.

“Wait Seamus I have to tell you something.” Sly stops him

Seamus get’s a worried look on his face “Are you going to break up with me?”

“What? No.” Sly verifies “Why did you think I was going to break up with you Seamus?”

He sighs before looking down at the sheets below them “I thought you might break up with me because you’ve been acting really weird all week I thought maybe you were sick of me.”

Sly laughs “I’m not sick of you Seamus I could never be sick of you. I’ve just been really nervous about tonight.”

“We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to.”

“No I want to!” Sly declares quickly earning a laugh from Seamus “It’s just... this is my first time doing this.” He says motioning between the two of them.

Seamus gives him a puzzled look “Really?”

Sly nods and Seamus continues “Well I promise I’ll go slow. And if there’s anything you don’t like you let me know okay?”

Sly smiles and leans forward to go back to their little activity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just an apology in advance I just noticed I didn't get all these chapters grammar checked so I'm sorry if any of them are really bad because of that. Thanks for reading!


	19. Jordan's Disappearance

James doesn’t hear again from Jordan all weekend and on Sunday when he drops by before work his mother says that Jordan isn’t home though James is pretty sure his truck was in the garage when he pulled up.  
On Monday James doesn’t even make it into the school when Joe’s pulling him behind the school to tell him all about his date with Spencer and of course James is happy for him but he’s more interested in finding Jordan and checking to see how he’s doing.

When James get’s into science class Jordan isn’t there and he doesn’t show up for any of their other classes either. At lunch James let’s Seamus and Dan know what had happened and they both say they haven’t heard from Jordan since Friday either.

“We could try calling him.” Sly says as he pulls out his phone and tries to dial Jordan’s number but of course get’s sent to voicemail after a few rings.

“Maybe he’s just getting over his break up I mean if someone I really loved broke up with me I need a few days to myself to feel better.” Dan states. Seamus nods in agreement.

“I agree. If Sly broke up with me I’d probably transfer schools to try and get over it.”

Sly coos “Aw Seamus.” He says as he walks over to where his boyfriend is standing to give him a hug.

James still can’t get over it though and it’s starting to affect his work at school as he spends almost every class trying to think of why Jordan hasn’t came back yet instead of listening to the lecture or taking the notes. He doesn’t want to lose his best friend but why would Jordan be avoiding the others if he was just mad at James?

Another week passes and Jordan still has yet to return to class. That’s two straight weeks. Something must be done.

That Friday, James, Aleks and Dan pile into Dan’s truck and head over to Jordan’s in intent of getting him to come out and talk to them. They know if they go straight after school Jordan’s mother won’t be there to tell them he isn’t home so he’ll have to come to the door to answer. Seamus and Sly don’t come however because he’s helping Sly hand out resumes for a job.

Dan pounds and pounds on the door but gets nothing. James sighs angrily and he shouts up at the window that leads to Jordan’s room but still nothing.

“This is pointless he’s not coming down.” Aleks moans

“He can’t just hide up there for the rest of his life because one girl cheated on him!” Dan shouts, directing it up towards the window in hope Jordan might hear.

They give up after another 10 minutes and go back to Aleks and James is starting to believe they may have lost Jordan forever.

As March comes to a start Jordan still hasn’t returned to school and people are really starting to question where the young lad is. Even oblivious Dexter has noticed the lad’s disappearance from the school.

Then one day Stefani has finally had enough of her friends complaining and worrying and during her study hall period gets’s on the bus and get’s off at the stop closest to Jordan’s and walks the rest of the way till she gets to his house. She rings the door bell twice and then with no answer she takes drastic measures. There are trellises on the side of the Mathewson’s house and even in her heeled boots Stefani decides it’s her only option in getting Jordan attention. She climbs up, internally terrified that the trellises are going to give out and fall over, not being able to hold her weight, but luckily she makes it to the top and is close enough to Jordan’s window to bang on it a few times.

“Jordan!” She shouts as she bangs on the blind covered windows. Suddenly the blinds are torn open and Jordan gives her an alarmed look.

“What the heck?” He says as he goes to open the window for Stefani to climb in. ‘What are you doing? You could have died!”

She shrugs “I didn’t though.”

Jordan, still somewhat in shock from what just happened, goes back to sit on his bed. His rooms pretty messy from what his usual standards are and all the pictures he used to have of him and Monica on his desk are gone. He looks like he hasn’t left the house in days.

“So... how’ve you been?”

Jordan scoffs “Well I haven’t been to school in two weeks how do you think I’ve been?”

This time Stefani scoffs “Jordan it’s not like your life is over buddy. I know your hurt but you can’t let Monica ruin your life. She isn’t worth it.”

Jordan sighs and flops backwards on his bed “I know that. I just can’t go back.”

Stefani rolls her eyes “You can. You just won’t.”

“Stop correcting my grammar.” He groans “You sound like my teachers.”

Stefani ends up spending awhile longer there in hopes of cheering Jordan up but it really doesn’t seem to bring him any closer to leaving his room anytime soon. She leaves before lunch starts so that the guys don’t know she was here. Jordan let’s her use the door this time, knowing the trellises would break if she tried to climb on them again.

The next week Jordan still doesn’t come back to school but Stefani goes to visit him at lunch on Thursday to bring him any major homework so he doesn’t fail out of any of his classes. Meanwhile as James is serving detention with Joe for pulling a prank during the spring pep rally, Aleks get’s an unpleasant surprise.

“Where’s James?”

Aleks turns around from where he’s loading his book bag into his truck to see Kevin standing behind him. He noticeably gulps before answering.

“He has detention for what happened during the pep rally with the baby chicks.” He answers, starting to feel the fright bubble inside him as he wishes James was here to scare Kevin off.

“Well you shouldn’t be out here alone. Maybe I should take you home your neighborhood isn’t that safe.”

“It’s not that bad Kevin.”

Kevin shrugs “Pretty guy like you should have someone looking out for you.”

“I can handle myself Kevin. Don’t you have training or something you should be at?”

“Yeah but I blew it off to come see you. I miss hanging out Aleks.”

Aleks rolls his eyes “No you miss having sex with me. Kevin I have a new boyfriend now I don’t need you and your bullshit anymore.”

He pushes past Kevin to get into the car and before Kevin can try anything else he starts backing up to pull out of his spot. Once he’s driving down the street he takes a deep breath feeling relieved that he got out of there before Kevin could do anything to him.

It didn’t stop either. The next week when James missed a day of school because of a lingering hang over Kevin kept following Aleks around the school and asking him if he wanted Kevin to take him home after school again. And then again when James got stuck cleaning whiteboards at lunch for punishment for another one of his and Joe’s stupid pranks Kevin kept trying to take Aleks out for lunch and followed him all the way to his car until Sly came over and he dashed knowing Sly might tell James if he caught him with Aleks.

Aleks wanted to say something to James because he was seriously starting to fear for his own life but if he told James either the cops would get involved or James would literally kill Kevin.


	20. Practice

Stefani kept checking up on Jordan whenever she had a chance and she even skipped out on getting drunk at Spencer’s with some of the guys to spend Friday night keeping him company. She felt bad how messed up he was over this girl and as someone who had been heartbroken before she knew some of the best ways to make Jordan feel better.

That Saturday while Aleks was at home studying for his band exam (Yes they had exams in band at their school) he felt his phone vibrate beside him. He expected it to be James, bored and irritated as tonight he was starting to train Sly at the gas station. But when he looked at his phone it wasn’t James, it was Kevin.

The first text said ‘What are you doing’ and then it slowly started getting dirtier and dirtier until Aleks had to get up and go ask Dex how to block numbers off his phone. He didn’t understand why Kevin just decided that Aleks would just forgive him like that. After what he did to him though Aleks would never trust that asshole again in his life.

James started to notice that Monday how strange Aleks was acting about sticking close to James all of a sudden. Any time Aleks needed to go to a class he didn’t have with James he’d convince him to walk him to class and everyday at lunch he stayed with James and ate with him in his car or made him come with him to go out and buy food. He wouldn’t even walk to his own car after school by himself and made James walk him over to it.

James asked Aleks why he couldn’t just walk himself to his car after school but he just ignored his questioning and changed the subject. It was weird because Aleks was usually a pretty independent person and didn’t ever feel the need t have James look after him before. Something had to be wrong.

It wasn’t a shock to James when he found out what was going on. He caught the fucker with his own eyes.

He and Seamus were heading to the cafeteria between classes so Seamus could get a coffee because of how tired he was from being up all night on the phone with a sick Eddie who missed his Seamus, when they saw Kevin and a few of his football friends in the cafeteria and a certain Kevin McFarlane talking about how he was going to get Aleks back.

James scoffed at first when he heard him talking knowing that he had a pretty sad chance when he started hearing him talking about how he’s been sending Aleks dirty texts and trying to take him home after school. It got James blood stirring and Seamus was pretty sure he might punch Kevin in the face if he didn’t shut up.

“Kevin,” James calls as he starts towards the table he and the other jocks are occupying. Kevin looks over and smirks.

“James, shouldn’t you be with Aleks? Or has he come to his senses and dumped your sorry ass finally?”

“No he hasn’t. Leave him alone Kevin he isn’t interested in another black eye.”

“Oh is that what he told you? That I gave him that?” Kevin says with a laugh. “He got that from getting into a fight at a party. I would never do that to my Aleks.”

“He didn’t get it from a party Kevin he got it from you. And he’s not yours any more he’s not your possession, he’s nobodies. Leave him alone or else.”

“Or else what?”

“Or. Else.” James states before tugging Seamus along and leaving the cafeteria.

“I can’t believe he would think anyone would believe that he didn’t give Aleks that black eye.” Seamus says as he slurps at his coffee on their way down the hall.

James puffs out a breath “That punk doesn’t know what’s coming to him.”

James wasn’t much of a fighter. Most people assumed that after Kevin kicked his ass in the diner. Kevin had thought it was just luck that he had won that round but as he thought about it more he realized that maybe he was a better fighter then James.

The only guy James knew that really knew how to fight was Jordan. Well and Sp00n but as he was 21 now he couldn’t legal get him to fight Kevin since he was a minor and Sp00n wasn’t.

James took a deep breath as he knocked on Jordan’s front door that chilly afternoon. He waited and had a funny feeling Jordan wasn’t coming. He sighed and was about to leave and face the fact that he was going to have to learn to fight himself when all of a sudden he heard a familiar voice behind him.

“James, wait,”

James turns around to see Jordan standing there in his cat pajamas and his Cardinal’s hat.

“Hi,” He says to his old friend, feeling awkward from not seeing him in weeks, months even.

“You want to come in?”

James nods and hops back up the stairs to the front porch before heading into the Mathewson’s home. Jordan’s the only one home. He can tell because there’s soda cans piled on the coffee table and he’s got The Witcher paused on the TV in the family room.

“So...” James says awkwardly

“Listen James I’m glad you came actually. I wanted to apologize for not believing you about Monica and then ignoring you guys for the past few weeks. I just didn’t want to believe she would do that to me and when I found out it was true it really hurt and it was hard for me to get over it.”

“It’s okay Jordan, really. I’m glad you’re moving on she’s a bitch for doing that to you.”

The two share a hug then.

After that Jordan speaks. “So why did you come by anyways?”

“I need your help. I know you’ve been in a few fights before, mostly because I’ve been to most of your fights. Kevin’s been being a little shit to Aleks and I need to show him this isn’t going to fly around here.”

Jordan nods “Let me change into some proper fighting pants,” He says motioning towards his pajamas “And will go into the garage and I’ll give you some pointers.”

James spends the rest of the afternoon with Jordan getting fighting tips and also rekindling their friendship. After about 3 hours of them messing around James had to go get Aleks from school since they were going to the movies that night. He tells Jordan thank you and Jordan tells him to let him know when the fight is so he can be available for back up if he needs it. James thanks him again and then heads out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! So i decided to post quite a bit tonight because I'm going to try my best to finish this in the next few days or at least by next weekend hopefully! I'm somewhat close to done so hopefully it won't take me much longer and then I can start the new NOVAHD fic I thought I would do :)


	21. James vs Kevin

It doesn’t happen until that Saturday and it’s nothing like how James though his Saturday would go.

There’s a big ‘Spring Break’ party at Dan’s girlfriends, Liz’s house and most of the guys go. Even Jordan shows up, which is crazy because he knows Monica is going to be there. He comes with Stefani which is even weirder to the guys but it’s only because they don’t know about how much time the two had been spending together. The parties pretty wild and James loses Aleks pretty early on when he and Dex go off to do shots somewhere that James can’t even remember. He’s trying his best to avoid getting to drunk as he knows he needs to keep his eye out for Kevin in case he shows up and tries to pull something.

“Dude, he isn’t going to show up if he hasn’t already.” Ze whines trying to get James to chug a beer with him but James just shakes his head. He isn’t going to let his guard down this time.

He sips at the beer Dan got him earlier in the night while he watches Stefani try and get Joe and Spencer to dance with her when Jordan comes up to sit beside him.

“This is weird.” He says

“What’s weird?”

“Being single! I’ve had three girls give me their numbers and one of them also offered to show me her boobs!”

James barks out a laugh “See, look how great being single is! You got free boob for no reason!”

Jordan snorts but then turns his attention to something else “Where’s Aleks?”

James shrugs “He went off with Dex forever ago I have no clue.”

“You’re not worried?”

James shrugs again “I don’t want him to think I’m trying to pester him or something.”

They sit there awhile longer and watch Spencer terrible dancing when James notices he sees Dex coming towards them with no Aleks.

“Where’s my boyfriend?” He shouts as Dex advances towards them.

“I thought he was with you? I went to the bathroom to call Lyle back and he was gone when I got out.”

“Who’s Lyle?” Jordan asks

“My boyfriend! Do you guys never listen to me when I tell you stuff?”

James ignores him however, already getting up to go look for Aleks, Jordan following behind once he notices, leaving Dex with Stefani, Spencer and Joe.

He asks Ze and Anthony who haven’t seen him and then he asks Dan who has the same answer. He’s starting to get worried. He’s about to go check upstairs thinking his overly drunk boyfriend may have gotten lost and went up there for some reason when someone calls his name.

“James! You said you were looking for Aleks right?” Ash, Seamus’ tutor, asks.

James nods “Yeah, have you seen him?”

She points towards the front door “I saw him follow some guy out there a few minutes ago when I was coming in from my smoke. I haven’t seen him come in since I’m guessing there still out there.”

James shouts a thanks and he and Jordan rush towards the door.

When they get outside James blood boils as he sees who led Aleks outside. Kevin.

“What the fuck are you doing?” James yells as he notices Kevin backing Aleks into his car. It’s pretty obvious Kevin’s trying to coax Aleks into doing something he has no intentions of doing and James is not letting him off easy this time.

Kevin however doesn’t seem nervous at all this time as he shoves Aleks to the pavement of the driveway before turning on his feet and charging at James. The two start engaging in punches on the cold pavement, tumbling about as Jordan goes to help Aleks up and get him out of there before he gets hurt himself. As Jordan’s trying to get Aleks past them however Kevin grabs his ankle and trips him, pulling him towards there scrap. Jordan shouts for Aleks to go inside which he does.

Kevin lands a few more nasty ones on James before sucker punching Jordan in the stomach before reaching for his back pocket where he knows through Aleks is where Jordan keeps his knife.

He turns back to James leaving Jordan wounded and wheezing on the ground and stands up to hover over him.

“Now, you either let me have Aleks back, or this knife isn’t going to be so clean anymore.”

James visibly gulps, preparing himself for the worst because he knows Jordan’s fading in and out on the ground from the pain he’s endured and there’s no way anyone in the house is sober enough to help him out now.

But just as Kevin’s about to ask him again what his choice will be he’s cut off by a shadow of a man grabbing the back of his jacket and pulling him back before throwing him to the ground. He doesn’t do anything after that but Kevin’s eyes widen when he sees who it is and backs off right away and crawls to his car to get away.

James blinks from where he’s slouched on the ground to see the shadowed figure come more into focus. Max.

“You guys okay?” He asks, checking Jordan over James mostly because he looks like he’s about to vomit from the pain.

“Dude what are you doing here? How did you even know we were in trouble?” James asks in such shock from all the events that had just happened.

“Renée wanted to come to this party tonight to see some of her city friends so I thought I’d join her. As we pulled up I noticed Kevin immediately and then I saw Jordan’s hat and knew right away you guys were in trouble.”

“Well thank you man, seriously you don’t know how lucky we are you showed up I might have died.”

Max snorts before turning back to Jordan and helping him to his feet. He gets him over to his truck and helps him into the box so he can check him out better to make sure he doesn’t have a concussion from hitting his head on their ground.

“Max seriously, thank you again for that.” Jordan tells him as Max is checking him over.

Max smiles “This wasn’t a big deal Jordan, really. You’re a good guy and so is James here and I wasn’t going to let my two good friends get killed by some jackass with temper problems.”

“Listen Max,” Jordan starts once Max deems him concussion free “I’m sorry for how I acted in the past. I know I said I’d never forgive you for what happened 2 years ago but after tonight it’s obvious that you’ve changed and I think I’m ready to give us a second chance at being friends.”

“That means a lot Jordan, thank you.” Max says and then Jordan leans forward to give him a hug.


	22. Aftermath

James heads back into the party where he’s met by Dan and Seamus both looking alarmed and worried for their friend.

“Dude what happened? Aleks came in here crying and telling us that Kevin was going to kill you guys!” Dan shares.

James sighs “Yeah because the punk almost did. Luckily Max showed up at the perfect time and scared him off.”

“Max Gonzales? He’s back in Littleton?” Seamus asks

“He’s been back for a few months now. He’s changed guys and Jordan agrees that he deserves a second chance.”

Dan nods “Well after doing something like that for you guys I also agree he should be able to have another chance.”

Max and Jordan come in seconds later and Seamus and Jordan and Max start to talk as Dan takes James up to Liz’s room to see Aleks who was up there with Stefani and Dex after getting a little upset after the fight and needing somewhere to calm down.

As they approach the bedroom door James can hear Stef comforting Aleks and it makes him hurt for how he wishes Aleks didn’t have to witness that.

“I just love him so much I wish Kevin would just leave him alone.” He hears Aleks say to her and it makes him just want to hold him forever.

James enters the room and goes to Aleks before saying anything to anyone and gives him a big bear hug. He waits until Aleks has calmed down a bit and then they head home for the night back to James because he can tell Aleks has had a rough enough night and doesn’t want anything else happening at the party to worsen it.

After spring break Jordan comes back to school. He ignores all the strange looks and hateful whispers and comes back in full stride. It’s hard because the first thing his drama partner says that morning is questioning him about Monica cheating on him but he does all the steps Stefani gave him for this type of situation.

Kevin doesn’t approach Aleks or James or any of them at school. Most of them assume it because Max is hanging out with them again and Kevin’s still frightened of him.


	23. Thoughtful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is sort of filler because I thought going straight from the fight to summer was to fast so I added this.

As finals approach James tires his best to study his hardest. Usually his interruptions would be his friends bugging him to come play video games or go cruising but with Seamus now with Sly and Joe now with Spencer and even Dan having a girlfriend his only distraction was really Aleks. Not to say he wasn’t an annoying little shit as well.

“Aleks, I’m trying to study! Get off me!” James whines as he feels Aleks crawling onto his back and reattaching his mouth to James neck where he had been trying to leave a hickey before James had brushed him off to try and study. Usually he wouldn’t care as much but frankly his grades had been dropping due to how much stress he had been through lately. Aleks on the other hand could care less about finals as he wasn’t in jeopardy of failing and had no care in the world about his grade average as long as it was a pass.

“I’m bored I wanna make out.” Aleks whines back trying his best to get James to give him more attention. James sighed because he knew this was a lost cause and his studying for the night was over as Aleks once again starting pressing kisses down the back of his neck.

As the weeks proceeded to finals James started to feel even more pressure on the matter, especially because even Seamus and Jordan were taking these tests more serious than usual. Seamus had even been getting extra help on top of his tutor from Sly.

“Dude Mr. Peters said there’s going to be three essay questions, three!” Jordan complained to James after school one day. James sighed, even more to study for. And when? He had work and his dog to look after and a bored and horny Aleks for the rest of his free time. God was his life stressful.

The only solution James could think of the get more free time was to find something to occupy Aleks.

“What’s this babe?” Aleks asks that day when they get into James car and he hands him a small present box.

“I got you something. Open it.”

Aleks smiles his cheeky and adorable smiles before opening the small box. Inside was a key to James place, so he could come and go when he wanted.

“I thought since you’ve been pretty bored lately you could bring Mishka over to come play with Ein so you had something to do at my place. Then we could technically still be hanging out since I know that’s what you wanted.”

Aleks smiles and leans across the gear shift to kiss James “You’re the best. Thank you.”


	24. Senior Year

The school year comes to an end, just weeks later and luckily James passes all of his classes (though he isn’t sure at all how) and the group go their separate ways for the summer. James spends most of his summer working, visiting his dad or with Aleks, falling more and more in love with him each day. He did however get enough looks from his mother over the two months off to know that she wasn’t impressed with how little he put into looking at colleges over the summer. Sure it was there last year of school but James didn’t want that pressure on him all year when he was having a hard enough time with his school work already.

He sees Jordan a lot but it’s strange how often he talks about hanging out with Stefani now. It’s almost like she’s his new best friend and James still has no clue why.

He also sees his other friends like Dan and Seamus and Sly and Joe and Spencer and Ze and even a little of Sp00n when he’s not off looking at college’s himself as his mother threatened him that she would kick him out if he didn’t finally go off to school.

The first day back to school is a bore as always and mostly just students moaning and groaning to go back to summer. James is happy to be back with Aleks more however, especially because of all the classes they have together this year.

He’s at his locker that day after his 5th period class putting his stuff away and awaiting Aleks when he sees him coming down the hall with someone he’s never seen before.

“Oh James,” He says with a bright smile upon his face “This is Aron I met him in my computer science class.”

Aron smiles and gives him a wave.

“Nice to meet you man.” James says “You’re new to Littleton?”

“Well I’m from Denver,” He explains “This school offered better programs technology wise so me and my mom moved on down here for the year. Then after I’m off to MIT for college next year.”

James nods. Great, another person who knows what they’re doing after high school to rub in his face.

“There’s not anything you’re interested in that you would be willing to get a degree in?” Jordan asks that night on Skype as the two and Dex are all video chatting as he still isn’t back from England from over the summer and wanted the details of their first day.

“No there’s nothing I can think of I’d be good enough at to do for the rest of my life.” James says and groans at how he wishes he could just play video games for the rest of his life and get paid for that.

“What’s Aleks doing next year?” Dex asks.

That’s a good point. Aleks hasn’t really said much about if he’s going to college or university or anything like that. Every time James has brought up his own situation Aleks just tries to comfort him and make him feel better about not being sure what he wants to do with his life.

“He hasn’t really said much about college.” James says

“Well, see, not everyone has it figured out yet James. Your just over thinking it.” Jordan tells him.

“Yeah just like you over think things with Stef-“

“Shut up!” Jordan interrupts Dex immediately

“Wait what’s going on with Stefani?”

“Jordan has a crush-“

“I said shut up!” Jordan interrupts the lad again, hoping they’ll both drop it. Unfortunately Jordan’s friends are asshole’s and instead laugh at him and tease him even more for his stupid little crush on their friend.

There call ends and James ends up going to bed pretty early in hope of getting up at a decent time and getting to the school before the bell to talk to the councilor about some college open houses he could maybe go look at.

The rest of the week is pretty much a blur until Friday when some of the guys go to the football game to cheer on Max who rejoined the team when he heard Kevin didn’t try out this year. James asks Aleks if he wanted to go but he just had such bad memories from those games over the years he rather just go back to James and play video games and eat pizza.

At the game Jordan tries his best to make it not noticeable how he keeps blushing around Stefani. She never seems to notice so hopefully his other friends won’t either. He just doesn’t want someone like Spencer to accidently spit out something and Stefani to figure out he has a tiny thing for her.

It’s hard not to after all that she’s done for him. Plus she absolutely gorgeous and funny as hell and sweet and caring and compassionate and really Jordan can’t think of any reasons why the whole school doesn’t have a crush on her. Stefani isn’t cheering tonight since she rolled her ankle a few weeks back skate boarding with Jordan and Joe. She doesn’t seem to upset however as she still makes all her silly puns that make Seamus and Sly fake gag every time.

As the game is ending it’s starting to get chilly from the fall cold air and as Seamus, Sly, Stefani and Jordan make for the concession stand Jordan decides to do the polite thing he was raised to do and offer Stefani his jacket.

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to get cold?”

“Nah I’m fine in just my t-shirt.” He says and holds it out for her to slide on.

“Thanks Jordan.” She says with a big smile as they continue on.

Seamus gives them a weird look but before he can think further into it he can here Sly complaining beside him.

“Why can’t you be gentlemen like Kootra?” He shouts dramatically. Seamus just rolls his eyes and tosses his purple hoodie right at Sly’s face as he continues walking.

That night while James and Aleks were fast asleep in his bed he awoke to a bang on his window. When he opened his eyes a familiar face came into focus.

“Ze? What the fuck?” James whisper/screams at his friend. How the hell did he even get up there?

Ze waves and then points for him to open the window. James groans and detangles himself from Aleks and trudges over to the window before hauling it open. He brought a god damn latter, this must be serious.

“Dude its 1 am, what the hell?”

“Sorry,” Ze says as he crawls into James room “I just needed to ask you something.”

“At 1 o’clock in the morning!”

“Well I couldn’t sleep and I have chess club in the morning.”

James groans “Fine what is it?”

Ze takes a deep breath “I may or may not have kissed Anthony.”

James rolls his eyes “Dude we knew we saw you.”

“You did?”

“Yes, today before Physics Sly had to pee ‘so bad’ so I went with him to the bathroom and when we opened the door there you two were, locking lips, and Sly wouldn’t shut up about it all Physics class. Why is that such a big deal anyways? It’s not like being gay at our school is a problem or anything. Plus you two have liked each other forever.”

Ze sighs “But you know my parents James. They literally bring me home girls from church on Sundays to try and set me up! If they find out I’m gay they’ll never forgive me.”

James sighs but nods because he has met Ze’s parents and they aren’t the nicest people. He doesn’t really know what to tell him because his mom took it great when he told her and his dad wasn’t even phased by it, just asked him to finish cleaning the kitchen and then come help wash his car. He also knows both Aleks parents didn’t have a problem with it either as his dad always stated he kind of expected it, which Aleks always got bewildered by when he said this.

“Maybe you just need to bring up the idea to them, like tell them your friend Anthony is gay and see what they think about it.”

Ze nods “That’s good advice James, thanks.”

He then turns and starts to climb out the window again, being careful as ever with his stupid latter. His neighbors were going to think they were insane.

That next week James finally bumps into Kevin for the first real time since there fight 4 months ago. He’s going with Joe back to the gym after school that Monday since Joe left his gym shoes in the locker room and states he needs them for that night even though James really doubts he does. They walk in and when they turn the corner from the showers and toilets to the lockers they see Kevin, slouched over on the bench staring at the floor.

Joe motions for them to leave but James waves him off and mouths that he’ll go grab his shoes while Joe waits outside the door. He approaches the bench quietly as Joe’s shoes sit upon the edge of it and Kevin is occupying that same bench. He looks up quickly when he hears James shoes scrunch against the somewhat wet floor.

“What?” Kevin questions as he approaches “You come here to rub in my face that you won Aleks?”

“No I came here to get Joe’s shoes.” James answers “Why can’t you just get over the fact that I did not win Aleks, that he chose not to be with you anymore because you treat him like garbage.”

Kevin takes a deep breath and sighs “I know.”

“Wait you know?”

“I know I treated him like shit. It wasn’t always like that okay. I truly do love him. Just, I have an anger problem and it’s easier when you have someone to take your frustrations out on. And when you and he kissed it hurt so much I just wanted to kill you both for doing that to me because I didn’t understand why Aleks stopped loving me. But I do now. He stopped because I treated him like a freaking dog and I can’t forgive myself for that.”

James is in shock that Kevin’s actually admitting what an asshole he was. He wants to say something but really he’s speechless.

“I’m happy you make him happy.” He says before he gets up and walks out of the locker room. James stands there a moment, taking in what just happened before he grabs the shoes and gets the hell out of there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	25. Kevin's Present

James went with Sly, Seamus and Dan to go the open house at the college in their area. He had just been feeling so anxious about life after school that he needed some reassurance that he had a chance of getting into some school even if it was just this crummy one.

Sly seemed rather interested in staying in Littleton next year for school even though he had way to high of grades to be studying here. Seamus and Dan both weren’t really even interested in college but once they heard there significant others were both planning on attending the one in the area they both suddenly took an interest.

“I’m still confused to what a ‘women’s and gender roles’ degree can get you in life. Like what job does this apply to?” Seamus whispers to James as they continue following there guide around the school.

James snorts “This school is pretty ridiculous. Like there was a class for herding sheep!”

“I could get a degree in that from looking after Sly all the damn time.” Seamus says “He’s like herding about 100 sheep at a time. He’s always disappearing on me!”

At that moment Seamus get’s an elbow in the side from Dan, warning him to keep it down before they get in trouble. He’s trying his best to act appropriately to impress Liz even though all three of the guys aren’t buying it at all.

As soon as the two deem it clear to talk again without getting caught, Seamus asks “Why didn’t Aleks come with us anyways?”

James shrugs “I told him I was coming but he said he was going with Stefani to get Dex from the airport.”

“Has he got any idea what he’s doing next year?”

“No, he won’t even talk about it he always changes the subject.”

The rest of the orientation goes smoothly and after James leaves with Seamus and Sly as Dan and Liz are going out for a late lunch after. They drop him off at home and when he gets there he notices the door unlocked. Assuming it’s Aleks just using his key to let himself in after he went to grab Dex, he opens the door without another thought. When he realizes it’s not Aleks he starts to panic slightly as he turns the corner into the living room. The panic grows as he sees Kevin standing in his living room staring right at him.

“How did you get in my house?” James asks slowly, hoping not to spook him or cause any trouble.

“Found the spare key in your mailbox. I thought you were just not answering the door when you saw it was me. I’ve only been here a few minutes.”

James nods but he’s still confused to why the hell Kevin is at his house or thought it was okay to just wait around till he was back.

“Listen,” He starts “I brought you a peace offering.”

“A... peace offering?”

“Yeah, I know we aren’t friend or anything and I know Aleks is never going to forgive me for a long time after what I did to him but, I don’t know, I thought maybe you and Aleks would like these, knowing you two.”

He hands him two tickets to some wrestling event happening next weekend. The part for Aleks is that there’s going to be a transformer themed match for the opener, and the nerd in Aleks loves his transformers.

“Kevin this is actually pretty nice of you, thanks.” James says

Kevin just shrugs before murmuring something about getting on his way.

James is pretty befuddled after that. Why was Kevin sucking up to them all of a sudden? He has a strange feeling it has something to do with getting Aleks back, as always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends out there reading this!


	26. Pink Nova

As a stupid drunken dare James let’s Jordan and Dan die his hair pink. They were playing beer pong in Chilled’s basement when Sly brought up the fact that they should put some sort of wager on this. James instantly wanted to do something to torture Jordan, as he always does, and brought up dying his friend’s hair blue. In return, Jordan decided if he won James had to die his hair pink.

“It looks so bad.” Dan laughed as the three stood in the bathroom just down the hall from where the others were excitedly awaiting while probably drinking the last of the booze Stefani had provided.

James groaned again as he stared in the mirror in horror. “Aleks is never going to kiss me again.”

Jordan rolls his eyes at his friend before pushing him out of the bathroom at towards the room filled with here friends.

“Alright guys, time for the big reveal!” Jordan announces to get their attention.

“Oh come on, it can’t be that bad.” Spencer says hoping to lighten James sprits.

“Oh trust me, it is.” Jordan tells them before ripping the towel off of James’ head to expose the pink locks he now wore.

“Oh my god James!” Ze practically shirked as the other began to try and suppress there giggles.

James groaned again before falling to the couch beside Aleks. The other laughed at his expense a little longer before getting back to their pong game.

“Does it really look that bad?” James asks Aleks, who is cautiously running his fingers through James now pink scalp and massaging lightly.

“Nah, you look cute, like a cupcake.”

“If you call me a cupcake again I’m going to bleach your hair in your sleep tonight.”

Aleks laughs but continues rubbing James head in a hope to comfort him a bit.

A few hours later everyone started heading home. Aleks and James were two of the last to leave and as they were heading out the door James caught a glimpse of Ze and Chilled making googly eyes at each other and smiled. He was glad Ze had found someone who made him as happy as Aleks made him. But as he thought about it more he felt bad at how Ze had to keep it a secret all the time, especially from his family.

“You okay?” Aleks asks as they get in the car “You seem upset about something? Is it still about your hair? Because I told you it looks fine.”

James shakes his head “I feel bad for Ze.”

“Why? Did something happen with him and Chilled?”

James once again shakes his head no “He can’t tell his parents about him and Chilled because there so religious and they’ll never be okay with him being gay.”

Aleks nods “I understand that. It must be really hard. Are you sure they wouldn’t be okay with it if it was their own child? Some parents are a little more accepting if it’s their own child. Spencer said his mom wasn’t a huge fan of it before but once she saw how happy Spencer was with Joe she started to get more comfortable with it.”

“Really? I had no idea.” James replies.

Maybe he could get Ze to talk to Spencer for some tips since he wasn’t much help when Ze had asked him.


	27. Dex's 'Guest'

The next Friday Aleks and James went to the wrestling match and had a really good time together. When Aleks had asked James where he got the tickets he lied and said from his dad. He didn’t want Aleks to know where they were really from knowing the lad wouldn’t be too thrilled in going if he knew Kevin had purchased them.

After the fight the two decided to head back to Aleks, hoping to have some time to themselves, knowing his parents wouldn’t be home and Dex was over at Jordan’s for video game night. The two were talking about some stupid video Aleks had shown him on Youtube before in the car as they headed up to the front door and as Aleks unlocked it to enter he didn’t notice the sound of someone in the house as he was too busy laughing at James.

The two proceeded to the kitchen to get drinks but when Aleks went for the light he noticed it was already on and that Dex, and some other guy, were in the kitchen already.

Dex was standing, and his ‘friend’ was sitting at the kitchen island as the two were eating Aleks ice cream out of the pale. Aleks looked between the two before opening his mouth to ask what the hell was going on here.

“I thought you guys had that fight thing?” Dex asked trying his best to hide the flush on his cheeks.

“We did but it’s over now so we decided to come back here to hang out.” Aleks replied, hearing James snort when he said ‘hang out’.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us Dex?” James buts in when Dex doesn’t seem to know what to do after Aleks last sentence.

“Oh uh... this is Lyle, my boyfriend. The one I told you guys about but I’m sure you forgot about because you never listen.”

“I listen to you!” Aleks complains prior to adding “Wait didn’t you say he lived in England?”

Dex blushes more “Yeah...”

“So how is he here?”

James, somehow, puts the two together in his head. “Did he run away here?”

“I didn’t technically ‘run away’,” His boyfriend answers, using the finger quotes and all “I told my parents I was leaving to come see my boyfriend so they know I’m in America.”

Aleks scoffs “He can’t stay here Dex, my parents are going to freak out they barely will even let James stay the night unless we keep my bedroom door open.”

“Well where else is he going to go he can’t exactly fly back to England tonight.”

James suddenly has an idea. Why do his teachers think he’s so dumb again? “He could probably stay with Joe. His bedroom’s in the garage so it’s never a bother to stay there.”

Dex smiles at the offer and then runs upstairs to go get his phone to text Joe and ask. That just leaves the three in the kitchen.

“So you’re not planning on staying in America right? You’re going back to England I assume.” James asks as he walks over to the fridge to get he and Aleks the drinks they had been meaning to grab before.

“Yeah but I can stay for as long as Dex wants really.”

“You don’t have to go back to school?”

“No I dropped out. School just wasn’t for me.” He responds.

Dex eventually comes back down and James offers to drive the two over to Joe’s. Aleks comes along because his parents will be home by the time there back so knowing him he’s going to make James park in the alley so they can fool around in his car before they go back over there. He’s such a little shit. James loves him so much.

The month of October goes by pretty quickly and so does November, both filled with work and Aleks and studying. James even received his first A ever on a test. Sure it was in psychology but it was still an A.

He continued to look into college’s with Seamus, mostly because the two were pretty skeptical about any school letting them in with their grades unless they went to the shit college with the class learning about aquariums and what spooks fish. Seamus at least had his tutor and Sly for help where is James couldn’t really rely on Aleks for that as his school skills weren’t much better then James’.

Finally December arrived and with it came the usual Christmas shopping. James wasn’t too worried about getting Aleks as a elaborate of a gift this year as he did last year with the puppy as Aleks already told him he just wanted some new, good quality headphones for Christmas, mostly to block out Dex’s singing in the shower or his father trying to talk to him about his chores he didn’t do.

As the holiday approached however James started to notice how Stefani and Jordan were getting even closer now and James couldn’t help but wonder if the two were ever going to start dating or not.

“If you like her why don’t you tell her? It’s been almost a year since the Monica fiasco you have to be over that by now.” James says as the two stand in his back yard, awaiting Ein to do her business before the head in to play some video games.

“But what if she doesn’t like me that way back? I can’t deal with another girl breaking my heart James.”

“Jordan, you literally held hands yesterday she must like you.”

“How’d you know that?”

“Saw you guys at the arcade. Seamus and I decided to go throw a few ski balls before our double date at the movies.”

Jordan flushes and ducks his head “Well... whatever.” He stutters out, knowing he has no way of getting out of this one.

“Come on Jordan, you know happy how you were when you were with Monica. Imagine being even happier than that and getting Stefani, one of the prettiest cheer leaders in school, as your girlfriend.”

“Fine I’ll... I’ll talk to her this weekend.”

James gives him a pat on the back before calling Ein to go inside.


	28. The Mistake

Jordan usually goes to Stefani’s after school to work on their homework together unless she has cheer practice. Today however, as he’s on his way to meet her at the gym like they usually did he finds her with someone else. Someone that Jordan knows all too well.

Max.

Jordan’s heart shatters right there and he turns and starts walking towards his car without saying a word or even blinking. He can’t think straight all he can think about is Max, betraying their friendship yet again and Stefani, breaking his heart just like Monica did.

He gets home and doesn’t say anything to either of his siblings who are questioning why he’s home for once and goes to his room and locks the door. He flops onto the bed and stares at the ceiling in pain.

Again, another girl had broken his heart and made him want to just stop loving all together. All he wanted to do is hide for the rest of his life until the pain had stopped.

James is puzzled when he doesn’t hear anything from Jordan that night. The two had planned on hitting the arcade to meet with Spencer and Joe for awhile after his study time with Stefani. But as James waited and waited Jordan never texted him. He sent one himself, letting his friend know he would meet him there if he still wanted to come but never heard anything in return.

“That’s no like Jordan, usually he’d let you know if he couldn’t make it.” Spencer says

“Maybe he’s still with Stefani?” Joe brings up, smirking when he thinks about it.

James decides to try Stefani’s cell, hoping if they were fooling around she would at least have the decency to call him back unlike Jordan.

Unexpectedly though, she answers.

“Hello?”

“Hey Stef, have you heard from Jordan in the last while? I’ve been trying to get a hold of him since 5 and he hasn’t answered his texts or calls.”

“No,” She answers “Actually he didn’t even come over after school like usual. I thought maybe he was with you guys when he didn’t come meet me today.”

James face scrunches sadly “That’s really strange; normally Jordan wouldn’t bail on you.”

Stefani then suggests they should try going by his place and so James and Joe offer to come pick her up and drive over there.

Jordan ends up getting fed up thinking to himself how fucked up his love life has become and decides to go try and talk to someone, like a normal person would do with problems, instead of letting it get pent up inside like he usually would.

The one person Jordan trusts to have good advice, beside Stefani, is Joe. But when he shows up at his house his mother tells him Joe went out already. Jordan sighs but then she asks if he wants to wait in the garage with Joe’s friend.

Jordan walks in to see Lyle, Dex’s boyfriend, playing Mario Kart on Joe’s retro Game Cube. Jordan knows Lyle somewhat from over Skype when Dex and he would talk during the summer and Lyle would be over visiting. He’s a nice guy, just a little strange at times.

Lyle sees him walk in and obviously must be able to tell how shitty Jordan feels as he pauses his game and get’s Jordan a lawn chair to sit on. He also goes and grabs him a can of beer from Joe’s secret ice cooler under the bed.

“I’m guessing you’re here to talk to Joe about whatever the hell is upsetting you?” He asks. Jordan nods but he doesn’t feel like waiting that long and all of a sudden he’s spilling his whole story to this guy for no reason. Once he lets it all out however he does feel much better.

“You know,” Lyle starts “If you’re not really fancying going back to school after all this, you could drop out.”

Jordan pauses. Dropping out would solve so many of his problems. His parents would be mad, sure, but he could get a job doing some sort of construction and still make lots of money without a high school degree. Maybe dropping out was the answer Jordan always wanted?

“Yeah, I could drop out.” He says, taking a long swig of his beer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added in this part about Jordan dropping out because I was watching a Creature talk the other day when Dan brought up that Jordan's never finished high school. Thanks for reading!


	29. Hiding

James knocks for what seems to be the 100th time in the last 10 minutes but nothing. He sighs, he knows they should just give up because knowing Jordan he’s trying to shut them out. For what reason? James has no clue.

The next day at school there’s still no sign of Jordan and that really worries James that his friend is headed down the path he went down last year. It wouldn’t be as much of a problem if it wasn’t there senior year where there’s twice as much homework and grades count so much more.

After school James blows off taking Ein for a walk before work in favor of going over to Jordan’s again and trying to get him to answer the door, but of course nothing. He almost considers trying to climb up to Jordan’s window on the trellises but he has a funny feeling they’ll collapse under his feet if he even attempts it.

James ends up turning around and heading home to check on Ein before heading into work where he’s greeted by Eddie. Strangely though he doesn’t look as happy and chippers as usual. He actually looks pretty confused and upset.

“Sly what’s wrong?” He asks as he comes up to his friend his looking down at his phone with the saddest look James has ever seen on him.

“Joe texted me, apparently Dex’s friend told Jordan it would be a good idea to drop out of school.”

James halts. “Jordan did what?”

“He dropped out! It doesn’t say why or anything just that Dex’s friend told him it would make him happier.”

How could Jordan do that? His future would never be the same if he didn’t finish high school. Why would he even jeopardize his future like that?

The rest of the night of work was mostly Sly and James discussing the matter to why Jordan would even do this? James still couldn’t get over how his friend could just give up his education unless there was something seriously wrong which James thinks he would have told him about if there was.

He started to think that maybe Monica had something to do with the matter but then he remembered she was away in Germany for the exchange program so it couldn’t have anything to do with her.

But maybe another girl... maybe Stefani.

James knew that if he tried to pry with Stefani she’d be able to tell in no time. So he decided to get Spencer to since she would never think he was trying to get any info on her and Jordan’s relationship.

James watched from behind a snow covered bush as Spencer stopped Stefani on her way into the school the next morning, asking her about things with her and Jordan. The shitty part was James could barely hear and he couldn’t count on Spencer to talk louder. Spencer continues to ask Stefani about why she thinks Jordan dropped out and what this does to their relationship. Stefani’s not really answering in much detail making James’ plan a failure.

However that same day as James is heading to his car to meet Aleks for lunch he’s approached by Max who seems eager to see him.

“James did you hear about Jordan?”

“That he dropped out? Yes I heard.” He answers

“I think I might have something to do with it.”

James stops walking and turns to his friend “What do you mean?”

“He sent me a text this morning that read ‘I hope you’re happy now’. I don’t know what it means but obviously it has something to do with why he’s gone.”

James plan suddenly changes as now he has a new clue on his Jordan case. Man, maybe he should be a detective.


	30. Trouble In Paradise

Sly had told his parents when he started dating Seamus. His mother was so happy her son had found someone she really liked and his father had been as accepting as he had hoped. Even his sister was excited, hoping to plan her big brother’s wedding in a few months after his 18th birthday.

However Sly’s parents may not have known he and Seamus were having sex. He obviously wasn’t going to tell them because that would be an awkward conversation. But he probably should have been more careful in hiding it as now Seamus’ life may be in threat.

It all started the night before when Sly and Seamus got bored of working on their home ec project and their make out session ended up getting a little out of hand. After however Seamus realized how late it was and ended up having to head out pretty quickly after.

The next day while Sly was at school, he asked his mother if she’d help him, like last year, and wrap Seamus’ Christmas gift for him since his wrapping skills were below horrible. She agreed to because she was an amazing mother but as she went into her sons room she noticed to condom wrapper in his waste basket by the closet and decided to tell his father, who wasn’t thrilled about it.

“You and Seamus do not need to be doing that in this house.” He sternly told Sly when he got home from the office that day “Seamus is a nice boy and I’m sure he would like to stay around a while longer so I hope you two will listen to me or else.”

Sly nodded knowing that he was in pretty bad shit. He was still kind of confused to why his parents cared so much about him having sex. They loved Seamus, treated him like a second son. So why couldn’t Sly enjoy himself with his own boyfriend?

He brings it up with Aleks over the phone that night how laughs at him because he’s a dick. But he also said that it was weird how Sly’s parents were acting.

“My mom literally gave me a box of condoms when she found out me and Kevin were doing it. My parents really didn’t care at all. They did however make me give Dex the ‘birds and the bees’ talk since I had some ‘experience’ in that area.”

Sly snorts “That’s awful. Poor Dex will never know how to properly have sex now because of you.”

“Shut up. Maybe you should just talk to your parents about why it’s such a big deal. Because if they find out you guys did it again Seamus might get his balls chopped off.”

“I can’t let that happen.” Sly jokes before changing the subject “So, you and James coming to the business college orientation Friday?”

Aleks sighs “I doubt it. He’s been so busy trying to figure out what’s up with Jordan. He seems kind of interested in like secret agent work all of a sudden.”

“And you?”

“And me what?”

“What are you planning on doing after high school?”

To be honest, Aleks had been asked this question several times in the past few months, especially by James. Frankly, he had no clue. Before when it was him and Kevin he always thought about maybe doing something in the film industry some day but now he doesn’t want to go to a college unless James is going to.

He doesn’t want to sound like one of those girls but he really doesn’t want his relationship with James to end anytime soon. He wants it to last forever. He knows he should be a bit more realistic, that high school relationships hardly ever last, but he really thinks his with James could if they worked to try and make it last.

“I think maybe something in film. I don’t know though.”

“Dude, how do you not know by now?” Sly responds

Aleks huffs out a breath “It’s complicated okay.”

“What’s complicated? Is this about leaving James next year? I understand dude, I was sad about the fact me and Seamus probably won’t be at the same school but you can still make it work long distances wise.”

“I don’t want to do long distance though. I want to go to the same school as James. I don’t care where it is as long as we can both get in.”

Sly makes a sound in agreement “You got to talk to James dude, otherwise he might start planning his future without you.”


	31. Uninvited Visitors

James does not expect his Friday night to go like this at all.

His plans were to play video games with Aleks for a few hours before he had to go, his family going skiing for the holiday break, then watch a few hours of TV until his mother got home from her late night shift and help her make the two of them supper.

However as soon as Aleks is gone for the holidays everything spirals in a different direction.

James is upstairs in his room searching for his tablet when he hears a bang on his window. He turns his head and there at the window, yet again, is Ze.

“Dude, why don’t you ever just come to the damn door? It’s only 7:30 no one is sleeping!” James grumbles as he pulls open the window.

“I was worried you wouldn’t hear me.” He says as he climbs in.

Ze doesn’t say anything after that so James irrupts “Why are you here?”

“Oh, right. So I took your advice and I talked to Spencer about telling my parents about Chilled. He said it would be best if I did it slowly, like introduced the fact that I just was with someone, one of my close friends and see if they pieced the two together. Well I tired that, I said ‘Hey mom, dad, I have something to tell you’ and all of a sudden my dad stood up and started shout about how he knew I was gay! How did he even know? And they just kept yelling and arguing and I think my mom may have been agreeing with me... But then I got worried when my dad started talking about the church never forgiving me for this so I just left.”

“You just left?”

“I just grabbed my coat and boots and walked out. And then I walked here. Luckily no one stole my ladder from your back yard.”

James groans and slams his face into his palm. “So now what?”

“Well I was hoping you’d let me stay here until he cooled down. I was going to try Dan’s but I think he went to Liz’s families Christmas party.”

“Fine, but I’m watching Rick and Morty so you either watch along or go be quiet somewhere else.”

Ze nods and follows him downstairs.

After that, things are slightly more normal again, expect for the fact that Ze keeps complimenting his pink hair, even though it’s starting to fade by now. They just sit there watching the show and having some light conversation when there’s another knock at the door.

James get’s up while Ze paused there show. He gets to the door and when he sees who it is he contemplates not answering it.

“Who is it?” Ze shouts from the other room.

“Kevin!”

“Kevin? Why?”

“I don’t know asshole!” James whispers shouts back, hoping he can’t hear them inside. He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and unlocks the door for Kevin.

“Didn’t use the spare to let yourself in this time?” James jokes

Kevin shrugs “I could see you and Ze in the living room so I thought knocking was probably the better idea.”

“So, uh, why are you here exactly?” James asks, breaking the ice slightly as he really doesn’t know what to say to Kevin.

“Honestly? I had a date and he canceled last minute and... I don’t really have a lot of friends now that I got kicked off the football team so I thought maybe, if you guys were okay with it, I could hang here for awhile.”

“Wait you were kicked off the team? I thought you just didn’t try out?” James asks even more confused than before.

“No... Someone found out about what happened with Aleks and I that night and told coach. He said I couldn’t come back to the team.”

James feels a little guilty about that. He knows Kevin is an absolute asshole, especially with Aleks, but football was his passion and they got that taken away from him. Let alone any scholarships he was probably depending on for getting into college.

“Well Aleks isn’t around so I guess you can stick around for now.” James says, letting Kevin into the house.

It’s not even ten seconds later that there’s another knock at the door. They just sat back down on the couch, Ze giving James a look for letting Kevin stay, when there are another few pounds on the door.

James opens said door to find Max, who looks like he just got attacked by a cat or something from the scratches covering his face.

“What the hell happened to you?”

“My girlfriend and Junkyard’s girlfriend got into a little bit of a cat fight after the Basketball game. Turns out cheer leaders are pretty hard to pull apart when they got nails sharper then a tigers. Anyways, I got dumped for interfering and I thought you might have some band aids to help out with this.” He tells James, pointing at his scratched face. James lets him in and leads him to the bathroom.

From where Ze is sitting his visibly notices Kevin freeze.

“Dude, it’s just Max. What’s the big deal?”

“That dude will kick my ass if he knows I’m here.”

“Well then either get out or get ready to get said ass kicked.” Ze says with a laugh

Kevin visibly shakes in his seat before asking if there’s a back door he can sneak out of. Ze shrugs because honestly he hasn’t been to James house that often to remember if he has a back door. Right when he’s about to point to the kitchen area where he thinks it is Max and James come out of the bathroom and start towards the living room.

“So as you can see Ze and Kevin are here to torture me as well,” James begins when he notices how scared Kevin looks from his seat beside Ze. “Dude it’s just Max, what the hell?”

Max snorts “It’s because he thinks I’m going to whoop him again. Kevin I’m over that if James and Jordan are so you have nothing to be worried about.”

“I really doubt Jordan’s over it.” James tells him “As you might have noticed Jordan does not get over grudges easily.”

“Well if your okay having Kevin here then so am I.” Max says before taking a seat on the couch on Kevin’s left while James takes a seat on his right.

The next hour or so is awkward to say the least. Hanging out with the guy who hit your boyfriend, the guy who hit the guy who hit your boyfriend and Ze is quite an experience. They sit there and watch the TV and have the odd laugh but other than that it’s pretty much awkward silence and stares between the four.

The awkwardness is broken yet again when the door bell rings once again.

“Goddamn it, now what?” James grumbles as he gets off the couch to see who it is this time.

It’s Stefani.

“What are you doing here?” James asks knowing there were thousands of better things Stefani could be doing besides hanging here with James and the other three idiots.

“Well now that Jordan’s ignoring me I’ve been bored out of my mind. I thought since Aleks was around maybe we could be bored together,”

“Join the club.” Ze shouts from the living room. Stefani makes a befuddled face before stepping inside to notice the three of James’ friends seated on the couch.

James explains why everyone else has decided to join him tonight before taking Stefani’s coat like a gentlemen and going to hang it up for her. Stefani joins the guys on the couch then and James is left to sit on the lounge chair.

“So wait, I don’t get it. If Jordan’s mad at you why would he have dropped out of school?” Stefani asks when Max brings it up to her

“Maybe he just really hates you.” Ze laughs out

“It just doesn’t make sense though. Maybe he does hate Max, sure, but then why would he be ignoring James or me or Dan or even Seamus? It just does not make any sense.” Stefani wonders out loud.

Then Max finally puts the two together “Wait, I might know why he’s so upset.”

James then pause’s the show immediately out of interest “You do?”

“That day after school, a few weeks ago, I was talking to Stefani about the prom committee or something like that, and then I remember noticing someone out of the corner of my eye turn and run off. I think Jordan thought I was flirting with Stefani.”

It all makes sense now. Jordan was so in love with Stefani and another guy almost took that away from him again. And Max of all people. He got his heart broken again and he didn’t want to bear going back to school and so when Lyle gave him the idea of dropping out it sounded great to him.

“Why would that bother him though? I’ve been trying to get Jordan to notice I’ve been flirting with him for months and nothing. He obviously doesn’t feel that way about me.” Stefani says

“That’s the thing; he does feel that way about you! He was going to tell you that night because I told him he had to or else. And then he saw you and Max and was heartbroken that you didn’t feel the same way!” James announces, before standing up and heading for the door.

“Where are you going?” Ze asks

“To talk to Jordan. If my mom get’s home while I’m gone tell her I’ll be home in an hour tops.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys I just wanted to update you that I am currently finishing writing the last chapter of this story and it should all be posted this week! Thanks for reading!


	32. Uninvited Visitors Part 2

James doesn’t even have to knock at Jordan’s door because when he pulls up he realizes Jordan’s parents are having their Christmas party tonight so he can just walk right in and pretend he’s here for that. He does just that and when he takes his shoes off he notices Jordan’s sister talking to one of his cousins and walks over there to see if she knows where Jordan is.

“He’s downstairs getting more hot chocolate mix.” She says, pointing James towards the basement stairs.

James heads down there cautiously, hoping not to spoke Jordan or have him freak out for being here.

“James?” He hears all of a sudden and when he looks towards where he heard the sound he sees Jordan. He looks a lot paler then normal and his beard has grown out much more then he would normally allow it to get.

“Hey man I need to talk to you and I know you don’t want to talk to me but you need to hear this.”

“I’m listening.” Jordan allows

“Max wasn’t flirting with Stefani! They were just talking about prom and about how Stefani wanted you to take her. She likes you Jordan! This is all just a misunderstanding. She doesn’t want to break your heart and Max didn’t want to hurt you again either.”

Jordan sighs “I don’t know if I believe that. It’s Max I’m sure he was trying to get in her pants.”

“No Jordan! Well actually I don’t know but even if he was she wants to be with you!”

Jordan still doesn’t seem to believe him but at least he doesn’t push him away. Instead he tells James he needs to get the hot chocolate upstairs and when there upstairs he still let’s James stay and makes some small talk with him. James still wishes he would believe him because it’s true but if he recalls correctly from the incident last year, Jordan doesn’t believe thing until he sees them himself.

When James get’s home and hour later Ze and Stefani are still there, Max and Kevin both leaving as there curfews must have been approaching.

“Did you talk to Jordan?” Ze asks from where he’s sitting on the kitchen counter as James mother and Stefani are loading the dish washer from the supper James must have missed.

“Yeah, I don’t know how much of that he bought. I think if he heard it from Stef or Max it might make him realize it’s the truth.”

“But how am I supposed to do that if he’s ignoring me?” Stefani asks

“I told him tomorrow to come over so I could give him his Christmas present. Come by then and I’ll make sure he doesn’t leave until he hears the whole story.”

Stefani agrees with his plan and after she’s done helping James’ mother she heads home herself. With Ze still feeling unsafe to go home James makes up the guest bedroom for him. After that he crawls into bed after such a long crazy evening with things he didn’t expect to happen.

He’s finally drifting off to sleep when suddenly there’s another bang at his window. Unwanted yet again, James groans and rolls over hoping whoever it is will just go away but the knocking get’s louder and faster.

He gets up and what he sees at the window has him cracking up in seconds.

“Seamus why are you naked?” He says through a laugh, coming to the window to let his friend come in before his balls freeze off.

“Sly’s dad caught us having sex in my car and your house is a lot closer than mine so I thought I would stop here for some clothes so I didn’t have to answer any awkward questions by my mother.”

James chuckles yet again before walking over to his dresser and grabbing Seamus some boxers, pants and a shirt. “Is Sly’s dad still that upset with you guys having sex?”

“Yes I still don’t get why. High schoolers have sex I don’t get what the problem is. Were using protection and it’s not like I’m forcing him to do anything he doesn’t want to!”

“At least it’s only a few more months and then were off to college and you won’t have to worry about that.”

“I guess but I’m still not sure if Sly and I are even going to the same school. I want to but I know he has way more options than I do and if he chooses one I can’t go to were screwed.” He complains

“I hear you. I want to go to the same school as Aleks but I have no clue what he even wants or if he even wants to go to college or not.”

After Seamus is dressed he thanks James before going back to the window to leave.

“You know you could use the front door right?” James states

“Well I found this ladder in your yard I thought I should get some use out of it.” He says with a smirk, not knowing that it’s really Ze’s stupid ladder from all the nights he’s snuck in before.

Finally, as Seamus closes the window behind himself, James can get some sleep.

Or so he thinks until his phone lights up with texts from Aleks that he knows he can’t ignore.


	33. Truth

James and Stefani sit in the living room awaiting Jordan’s arrival. James is starting to think he might not show as he’s already 20 minutes late without a text or a call to let them know where he is.

“This is pointless he’s not coming.” Stefani moans as she falls back into the couch “He’s going to hate me forever and I’ll never get to tell him how I feel.”

Just as those words leave Stefani’s mouth they see Jordan’s truck approaching the house. He pulls up in the driveway and James goes to go yell at him for being late.

“What took you so long asshole?” James shouts as he opens the door to let Jordan in.

“I had to shave this monster beard off you tool.” He jokes. It’s nice to still have a glimpse of the old Jordan.

As they enter the house Jordan sees pretty quickly that Stefani’s there as well. James is expecting him to turn and run but instead he... smiles.

“You weren’t lying.” He whispers to James. He shakes his head in agreement.

The rest of the afternoon goes better than planned though neither Jordan nor Stefani admit to each other they have feelings for each other like James would have liked. But at least there on speaking terms again and Jordan’s got his sprits somewhat back.

As the Christmas break passes James spends a majority of his time with Jordan hoping maybe if his friend knows he’s there for him he might consider reenrolling at school.

The first day back after the break however there is no Jordan. James is upset because he was hoping maybe his plan would have worked but at the same time it is Jordan.

“Maybe it’s because only Stefani and him made up. Max went to talk to him so maybe that’s why he won’t come back.” Spencer says that day during their gym class

“Yeah if Max talked to him I’m sure he’d come back.” Joe adds

So James decides to approach Max after school and see if he’d be willing to go talk to Jordan.

“I’ll try man but I doubt he’ll listen.” Max warns

“Can you at least try? It would mean a lot.”

“Fine.” Max says as he continues towards his locker. James gives him a pat on the back as a thank you before turning and heading the opposite way to go catch up with Aleks and Aron.


	34. Truth Part 2

Jordan get’s up from where he was playing Battlefront on the couch and heads towards the door thinking it was maybe James or Stefani coming by. But instead when he pulls open the door he’s met with the last person he wanted to see.

“Hey Jordan, how’ve you been?” Max says with a smile

Jordan glares at him in return “How do you think I’ve been Max.”

“Look Jordan, I wasn’t flirting with Stefani. In fact I was trying to help her out by taking some the prom committee stuff off her hands so she had more time to go with you. I have no interest in sleeping with her. I just thought I should come let you know that. I’ll go now.”

As Max is about to head down the porch stairs Jordan stops him

“Max wait, I forgive you. I should have heard you out sooner. I just didn’t want another girl I loved to do something like that to me again.”

“You two are meant to be together. Trust me, I wouldn’t lie about that.” Max says before opening his arms and he and Jordan share a hug.

Max leaves and Jordan heads back into the house and quickly changes out of his pajama’s and then grabs his keys and heads over to Stefani’s.

He knocks on the door only once before Stefani’s already there, problem just getting home from school. He doesn’t let her even say hello before pulling her in for a kiss.

When they pull away Stefani smiles “Finally you asshole.” Before pulling Jordan back down again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super shot chapter but here it is!


	35. Don't Go

“Kevin’s freaking calling me.” James groans as he pauses the game he and Aleks are playing. Aleks gives him a look and right then James realizes he never told Aleks about the night Kevin had stopped by.

“Why is Kevin calling you?”

“He seems to think were friends now. When you were away at Christmas he came by to hang out and I had nothing better to do so I let him in and he told me he’s changed, which I can’t really believe, and now he’s calling me probably wanting to hang out again.”

Aleks giggles “That’s pretty sad. I can’t believe he just thinks we’d forgive him like that.”

“I know I can’t forgive him for what he did to you. I could never forgive anyone for even hurting your feelings.”

Aleks smiles “You’re such a sap I don’t get why I like you so much.”

James unexpectedly starts to feel a little sad inside. He’s going to miss spending moments like this with Aleks next year. He can’t even imagine not having Aleks around whenever he wants to cuddle and joke with and kiss and comfort when he’s sad.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Aleks asks as he’s probably notices James drifting off into day dream land. James smiles and throws him arm around Aleks shoulders and pulls him in close before pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“Just thinking about how much I love you.” He says with a smile

“You two are so gross.” James hears from the doorway, noticing Ze standing there making gagging sounds at their relationship as he heads down the hall towards the guest room he’s still occupying.

“Ugh, when is he going to go back to his place?” Aleks complains. Honestly James kind of wants Ze out as well as it’s really hard to spend time with your boyfriend when your friend won’t stop third wheeling.

That night when Aleks is changing for bed, James goes over to the guest room where Ze is working on his homework. Ze looks up when he sees James enter the room.

“Ze, I hate to break this to you, but you gotta go home. Your parents are probably freaked that you’ve been here the last 3 weeks and honestly, your killing the mood with me and Aleks.”

Ze sighs “But if I go home there just going to throw me back out for being with Chilled. Or worse they might send me away to some crazy church school that brain washes you not to be gay!”

“You got to at least see. If they freak out when you get home I’m sure you could go stay with Joe in his garage or even with Jordan, his parents are super chill. But I need some space man I’m sorry.”

Ze nods “I guess I’ll leave tomorrow then.”

James feels bad but he really can’t help it. Ze’s parents are probably worried sick about him anyways and he should let them know he’s safe.


	36. Come With Me

As prom approaches Jordan starts feeling nervous. He knows now Stefani wants to go with him but he doesn’t know how to ask her. He still isn’t even sure if there a couple now or not even after their kiss.

Seamus himself isn’t very interested in attending said dance. Not after his freshmen dance fiasco. He knows Sly wants to go because the lad hasn’t shut up about it for weeks now since Stefani brought it up to begin with.

James and Aleks really couldn’t care less about the dance but know they should make an appearance. At least it’ll be fun watching Dex and Joe make fools of themselves on the dance floor and Dan attempt to sneak in alcohol.

Ze really wants to ask Anthony to go with him but he’s afraid his parents will find out there going together. He’s been staying at home again though his parents aren’t really speaking with him. He knows a lot of the girls in his school go to his church and if they caught him with Anthony his parents were sure to know about it within the hour.

“If you don’t take Sly he’s going to hate you for it.” James says with a snicker as the two plus Jordan play some video games that night after school.

“Yeah well I really don’t want to look like a fool again.” Groans Seamus.

“You’re not going to look like a fool again because you’ll have a date and no one even remembers that dance 3 years ago.” Jordan tells Seamus

“You guys remember it!” Seamus moans “I’m sure that girl I asked remembers it!”

“But Sly’s not going to care Seamus. You two will have fun.” James encourages

“I’m only going because of him. And if anything goes wrong I’m leaving.” He agrees finally.

Another week passes and Jordan has still yet to ask Stefani. He knows he better soon before she thinks he doesn’t want to take her but he’s still nervous for some reason.

Finally works up some courage and thinks of a perfect plan to ask her.

Stefani’s coming out of her prom committee meeting when she passes the front office and sees Jordan standing there signing some papers. Her smile immediately brightens when she realizes what he has to be doing.

She runs up behind him and hugs him from behind “You’re reenrolling?”

Jordan nods “Yup, and I got a surprise for you.”

“You do?” She says grinning ear to ear. As Jordan finishes registering he grabs her hand in his and takes her over to her locker which he decorated with hearts and sparkles and a big sign that reads ‘Will you go to prom with me?’

Stefani grins and lean up to give Jordan a quick kiss before wrapping him up and in a big hug and answering,

“Yes I’ll go with you Jordan.”


	37. Prom

The night of prom the guys rent a limo, mostly using James’ pay check the jerks, and all go out for greasy burgers and fries before the dance. It doesn’t seem to bother any of their dates that they aren’t going for some fancy dinner as Stefani orders almost more the Aleksandr (the picky little shit).

After their meal the gang hits the school for the prom. Seamus awkwardly fixes his tie for the thousandth time when Sly approaches him and stops his anxious hands.

“Seamus calm down this isn’t going to be that bad.”

“I know I just hate these types of things.”

“If you really want we could skip out early and go back to your place and play video games.” Sly suggests but Seamus shakes his head.

“No, I know you want to be here so were going to go in there and dance like idiots and get drunk off that warm beer and then go make out behind a tree until I have to get you home.”

Sly laughs “If you insist.”

The dance is unusually fun, James actually even get’s Aleks to dance with him during a couple of the slower songs which he’s shocked by. Dan makes a good couple hundred bucks selling beer outside the washrooms and Jordan for once doesn’t step on his dates feet while there dancing.

Ze came alone but James can obviously tell he’s been eyeing up a certain curly haired boy the whole night.

“Dude, just go ask him to come hang out with us. You don’t even have to dance with him. No one’s going to think you two are here on a date.” He tells his friend

Ze sighs “He’s not going to want to now. He’s probably mad at me for not taking him as my date.”

Aleks groans from beside James “Well if you’re not going to ask him then I will.”

Aleks walks off and over to where Anthony’s standing with a couple of his friends and starts talking to him. Ze watches from there table, hopeful that Aleks can convince him to come hang out. He smiles when he sees Anthony follow Aleks back over to where their boyfriends stand.

“Alright, you two have fun, James and I are going to go dance.” Aleks says, shoving Anthony into the chair beside Ze and grabbing James by the elbow and pulling him back to the dance floor.

The rest of the night goes smoothly. Ze get’s to talk with Anthony and they enjoy each other’s company, Spencer and Joe get Aron drunk off for the first time off Dan’s shitty beer and somehow don’t get caught, Jordan and Stefani hit second base in the back of the limbo and Sly somehow doesn’t get any branches stuck up his ass while him and Seamus are going at it in the place he suggested earlier.

As the night ends the guys leave separately mostly because of different curfews. As James and Aleks leave together he whines and complains about their stupid prom pictures.

“They look so bad because of your dumb mustache.” He complains

“At least you don’t have pink hair in these.” Aleks says with a chuckle earning an elbow to the side from James. “Hey there better then Spencer and Joe’s, Joe’s in mid sneeze when they took the photo.”

James snorts “I guess these are better than that. But seriously you got to shave that caterpillar growing on your lip it’s awful.”

“Nah you love it.”

James snorts again and makes a gagging face just to show Aleks how much he ‘loves’ it.


	38. Growing Up

With the dance gone by now the only thing left was there finals and getting into colleges. James was already worrying because Sly already got 4 back saying he was accepted and Aron was accepted back before prom happened.

“If we go to the University of Minnesota we’d at least be close to home.” Aleks brings up. There sitting on James bed with University and College pamphlets sprawled out everywhere while they try and decide what they want to do next year.

“We?” James says after thinking a second. He had no clue Aleks was interested in attending the same place as he was, honestly he had no clue Aleks was even interested in going to school next year until he suggested this.

“Well I mean... we don’t have to go to the same school. I just thought it would be a lot easier than trying to stay together when you’re all the way in California and I’m all the way in Boston or something like that.”

James smiles “Of course I want to go to the same school Aleks. I just had no idea you even were interested in that.”

“Well I just want to be where you are whether that means moving to Arizona, which please let’s not do that, or Pennsylvania. I just don’t want to break up just because of stupid college.”

“Well I agree with you.” James says “What does Minnesota have to offer us?” He asks after and feels his heart warms as Aleks smiles brightly and grabs James laptop to look up the school they hope to grace next year.

That night after Aleks has left and James is staring up at the ceiling trying to sleep he gets an interesting idea. He knows what people say about getting married right after high school, that it’s a joke and never lasts. Maybe he could just purpose to Aleks and they wouldn’t have to get married right away. It wouldn’t be his worst idea yet.

He pulls Seamus aside the next day after class to talk to him about it. Before he can though, he’s grimacing at Seamus’ appearance. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days or got punch in both of his eyes with how dark the rings are underneath.

“How late have you been up studying?” He says with a short laugh, hoping that’s the reason Seamus looks like such crap and not something worse.

“I’ve barely gotten any studying done dude.” He says before he motions for James to follow him. The go into some janitor’s closet that in the 4 years James has went to this school he’s never seen in his life. Once he knows that the coast is clear he continues “Sly ran away from home and he’s been keeping me up all night worried that his parents are never going to forgive him for it.”

“Wait why the hell did Sly run away from home? He literally has the perfect life!”

“His parents couldn’t get over the fact that we were going to be living together next year if we go to the same school and Sly freaked out at them for all of a sudden turning on him and our relationship and just packed up some of his clothes and came to my place in the middle of the night last Monday after prom. I wasn’t going to make him leave because I agree with him that his parents are being unreasonable but the dude never sleeps!”

James is a little in shock that Sly actually ran away from home to be with Seamus. When he thinks about it he knows personally he would do the same for Aleks and hopes he would do the same for him.

“Well if you need a place to crash for a few hours you could always come sleep in my guest room while Aleks keeps Sly entertained.” James offers.

Seamus thanks him for the offer and promises he’d going to take him up on that in the next few days. The he asks James what he had wanted.

“I want to ask Aleks to marry me. And before you say that’s an awful idea-“

“I don’t think that’s an awful idea. I think it’s smart. Aleks will be thrilled and he won’t be as nervous about you leaving him when you’re at college.”

“Aleks is nervous about me breaking up with him?”

“He told Sly, who told me, that when you guys get to college he’s scared that even though you’re at the same school you’ll end up getting bored of him and either cheat on him or break up with him.” Seamus explains.

“I would never do that. I guess this is probably a good idea then.” James states “Well will you come with me to looks at rings? I’d ask Jordan but I’m scared he’d ask Stefani to marry him. That doofus is so head over heels for her it’s ridiculous.”

Seamus nods in agreement about Jordan before answering “Yeah I’ll come with you. Hope you got a hefty bank account because those rings be expensive.”


	39. Falling Behind

Jordan groaned yet again as he struggled to try and catch up on school work. Dropping out may have been one of the dumbest things he ever did because now he’s only got a month until finals and he has to learn 4 months worth of school work in just that short amount of time, plus study the stuff he didn’t miss and somehow pass all these tests.

He considered asking one of his friends for help but frankly there all pretty dumb. Stefani would usually be helping him but her family decided to go to Hawaii for 2 weeks after spring break. He could try and borrow Seamus tutor but he feels like his Irish friend might need her more.

His last resort was either Sly, who truthfully isn’t very good at tutoring, or Max, his only friend that has most of the same classes as Jordan.

He moans again as he drops his textbook and grabs his phone from under his pillow and dials up his friend.

“Hey Max, you busy?”

“Nah,” Max starts “I was just throwing some hopes with Sp00n and Dan. What’s up?”

“I need a tutor. And you’re pretty smart and you and I have most of the same classes. I could even pay you.”

“You don’t need to pay me Jordan. You’re my friend I’d be glad to help you.”

Jordan cheers silently inside “Awesome, thanks Max, tomorrow work for you?”

“Yeah, I’m done work at 3pm and then I’ll come on over.”

After Jordan hung up he flopped back on his bed and kicked all his homework away, avoiding it now until help arrived.

That Saturday Seamus and James went to the mall and hit up every jewelry store and ring store inside. James saw a few he liked but he was pretty sure Seamus was having more luck at getting Eddie gifts than James was for Aleks.

“We came here for a ring Seamus. You’ve already bought Sly a watch,3 new t-shirts, a stupid stuff bulldog that looks like Chef and some new cologne.” He grumbles. Seamus just shrugs in return.

“Hey I’m just a really great boyfriend who likes to buy my man stuff. And I pointed out about 6 rings that I’m sure Aleks would love.”

“They were all either way too expensive or just not good enough for him. He deserves the best.”

“I don’t think you can afford the best.” Seamus chirps back as he points at the last ring store in the mall “This is your last option bud.”

As they enter the store James sees it. The perfect ring. It’s got a black gem in the middle which immediately reminds him of his Aleks, and has smaller diamonds surrounding it.

“How much is this one?” He asks the lady working at the store. She smiles and shows him a price chart.

James sighs “This is going to empty my bank account but it’s for Aleks. I’ll take it.”

As the boys are leaving the shop, James looking giddy as ever, they run into a familiar face. Kevin.

“Oh hey James, Seamus, what are you guys doing here?”

James uncomfortably tries to hide the fact that he was so happy before. “Oh just getting Sly some gifts because Seamus is a gross sap like that.”

“Hey fuck of you’re the one who just dumped their whole bank account-“

Seamus is cut off by James covering his mouth and trying to hide the fact that his friend almost just told his boyfriends ex that he was going to purpose.

“What did you dump your whole bank account on?” Kevin says with a laugh

“Uh... just some games... nothing important.”

Kevin gives him an odd look “Why do you have a bag from the store behind us then?”

“Oh this is for my mom... it’s uh, her birthday, so I had to get her something nice.”

“Ah,” Kevin answers “Well I’ll see you guys later. I got to return this stupid sweater my grandma got me before the store closes.”

As Kevin wanders off James lets out a huge sigh of relief.

“He cannot know about me asking Aleks to marry me.”

“Why? You said he’s changed.”

“Yeah it doesn’t mean he wouldn’t try and kill me if he found out I was locking him down for the rest of his life now. People can change but it doesn’t mean they can’t go back to their old ways.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super long chapter but with only a couple left I thought I would just combined these two! Hope you enjoy!


	40. Counting On This

Once James had a ring he had to think of how he was going to ask Aleks to marry him. He knew that if he was pretty straight forward about it Aleks might not say yes, seeing how young they were he’d probably be more appealed by the commitment thing more than rushing into getting married. He could do something really big like he knows Sly and Joe would want but Aleks isn’t really into stuff like that. Aleks would probably be happy with him just asking over movie night or something.

James was looking at the ring in the small box contemplating all this when his mother walked in and realized what her son was looking at pretty quickly.

“Is that for Aleksandr?”

James shrugs and hides the ring back in his jacket pocket quickly before his mother can freak out at him. Instead though she smiles and comes over to hug him. James freezes at first before hugging back.

“You’re not mad at me?” James asks, confused at how happy his mother seems that her teenage son is going to leave her to go marry his high school sweet heart.

She chuckles at she let’s James out of her embrace “No I’m not mad at you dear. Aleks is a great guy and I’m glad you’ve found someone like him.”

James smiles “Thanks mom.”

She gives him a little nod before she goes back to her housework and James goes back to his ring.

With only 3 weeks to finals colleges and universities start to send out their acceptance letters to let students know where they’ll be spending there next few years of schooling. James had no clue that this was happening this week until he gets into school Monday and Sly runs up to him excitedly, flashing all the different acceptance letters and options he has for next year.

“Did you get any back yet?” The bubbly Latino asks as he follows James down the hallway to his English class. James huffs.

“Not that I know have. Has Aleks? We applied to most of the same places so if he did then mine must be on their way too.”

“I think so. I heard him and Aron talking about the University of Minnesota or something.”

“Yeah that’s the one!” James affirms.

When James gets into class he finds out Stefani and Dan both got there letters of acceptance back as well, and Dan says he’s pretty sure Spencer got one back himself. James starts to worry because he feels like his mother would have called him if she saw one in the mail for him seeing as it’s her off day so she’s home to see the mailman arrive. He’s even pretty sure he hears Artist Joe got his back during art class for the art program at Iowa Central College, which James himself applied to just as a backup option.

James groans as he sits down in the back of Jordan’s truck for lunch and yet another one of his friends asks about his damn acceptance letter.

“I haven’t been home to check Joe. Why did you get one? I didn’t even though you were going to college?”

“Yeah I got accepted to the University of Georgia. It’s perfect because Spencer’s going to the Cleveland Music Institution so will be pretty close to each other still.”

“What the hell are you going to Georgia for?” Jordan asks

“Animal Studies.” Joe answers with a grin. Jordan rolls his eyes and mutters an ‘Of course.’ James however is still feeling slightly uneasy.

“James, why are you so worried? If Joe got in I doubt they’d pass up you.” Spencer tells him in an effort to comfort his friend.

James still has to know though and as soon as he’s done eating he texts Aleks, faking a stomach ache and drives home as fast as he can to go rummage through his mailbox.

He gets home, takes a deep breath before exiting the car, and then runs up to the porch and pulls out all the mail. All he finds though is stupid flyers and a few bills but no acceptance letters.

James groans audibly. Why the hell does he not have any letters? Then as he thinks about it maybe the mail man didn’t come yet. He unlocks the front door and heads into the kitchen to find his mother to see if she’s see him yet when he freezes.

Sitting on the dining room table are 3 letters. One from Minnesota, one from Colorado and one from Michigan.

James takes a deep breath before reaching out to grab one and rips it open as fast as he can. His heart slows down finally after hours when he reads the three words ‘You’ve been accepted’.

He opens the next two and they both say the same thing. He shouts out as he feels so relieved. Now all he has to do is pass his finals.

He dials Aleks even though he knows his boyfriends in class. Knowing Aleks though, he isn’t afraid to cut classes as he’s caught the Russian doing it so often. The first call goes to voicemail but just as James is about to call back Aleks does himself.

“Why are you calling me asshole? Mrs. Hendricks was in the middle of a lecture and my ring tone was on!”

James laughs “That’s what you get asshole.”

“Well what did you want? I might as well listen to you now.”

“I got in to all three schools.”

“Wait what? Why didn’t you start with that you fucker?”

“Jeez, calm down Aleksandr” James says with a smirk even though he knows Aleks can’t see it.

“Well now I want to give you a hug but I’m stuck in this bum hole.”

“You can give me one later when I pick you up after school and we go for milkshakes.” James tells him

“Yeah you better be taking me out, you owe me now.”

James laughs before saying a goodbye to his boyfriend and hanging up before running up the stairs to tell his mother he will be in fact getting some sort of education.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! So when I'm done this fan fic I decided I'm going to do a second High School AU but with different pairings and stories lines and probably more from Aleks' point of view. If you have suggestions for that hit me up on tumblr at mitch-marners.tumblr.com! Thanks for reading!


	41. Now or Never

As James and Aleks are drinking there milkshakes in the parking lot and listening to shitty radio music and laughing there asses off at bad jokes and stories James feels this weird need to do his proposal to Aleks. He doesn’t know if it’s the dairy reacting funny with the burrito he ate for lunch and giving him indigestion or if his heart just knows this is the right moment to tell him so he goes with the latter.

“Hey so I have something to ask you by the way?” James says after Aleks has stopped laughing from his previous joke.

“Okay, what?” Aleks says, looking excitedly at James.

James takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself down before he starts.

“Aleks, I’ve had feelings for you since we met during our freshman year. And even though I couldn’t have you, you were still my best friend and were always there for me. And now that I do have you I love this and us more than anything I’ve ever had in my whole life. And I’m not interested in giving that up anytime soon.”

James pauses and reaches into his back pocket and pulls out the small black box.

“Aleksandr Marchant the third, I know were young and we don’t have to rush into anything right away but, will you marry me?”

Aleks doesn’t hesitate before he practically leaps across the gear shift and into James’ arms.

“Yes, yes, yes, yes” He starts mumbling into James’ shoulder as he squeezes him tightly. James returns the embrace and grins from ear to ear.

As Aleks pulls back he gives James a quick kiss on the cheek before he holds out his hand so James can slip on the ring. He grins happily once it’s on and then goes back to squeezing James’ guts out.

“And I mean it; we don’t have to get married anytime soon I just wanted to do this though before we go to college so we don’t break up.” James tells him

“I know.” Aleks mumbles back “I don’t want to rush that either but this is seriously the best day of my life and I love you so much.”

“I love you too Aleks.”

As Aleks pulls away again he laughs “Are you crying asshole?”

“Fuck off.” James hisses as he wipes his eye to find out he is in fact tearing up before he shoves Aleks slightly “You’re crying too!”

“Yeah, because you are!”

James snorts “You’re such a dirty liar.” But when Aleks leans in for a kiss he doesn’t turn him down.


	42. Mine

Seamus sighs for the third time in the last twenty minutes as he tries his best not to kill Sly. He feels bad because he knows he should be being a little more considerate of Sly’s choice to run away from home but he needs so much damn attention and Seamus really needs to focus on studying for finals next week. If he fails any of them he could lose his chance of going off to College.

He’s about to pick up his math text book again and try and get focused again when he sees Sly get up from the end of the bed and head off into the other room, probably bored out of his mind of waiting until Seamus’ finished studying so they could go out.

“I’m hungry Seamus,” He hears him whine as he goes into the laundry room. Seamus rolls his eyes

“Well there’s ice cream in the freezer down here otherwise you have to go upstairs and make something or wait for me to be done this and then we can go out for food.”

“How much longer?’ His boyfriend yells back.

Seamus sighs and glances at his watch. He’s only been studying, or attempting to, for 40 minutes. He tosses his books at the end of the bed Sly was sitting upon before and grabs his keys and sweater.

“Let’s go get something to eat and then while you’re eating I can get some more studying done.”

Sly smiles widely as he follows Seamus’ out through the back door. “Why do you have to study more? You’re always studying!”

“Because not all of us have genius brains like you do, smart ass. I need good grades on these finals and the only way that will happen is if I study.”

Sly huffs but still get’s in the car when Seamus opens the door for him.

They go to Taco Bell because Sly wanted Nachos and Seamus pays because he’s a gentleman. After Seamus decides he might as well get gas on their way home so they head to the gas station James and Eddie work at. After they fill up the car Seamus starts home but he can tell something’s bothering Eddie all of a sudden.

“Seamus,” The other starts “Are you mad I ran away from home?”

“What? No, why would I be mad?”

“You seem like you are.” The Latino mumbles back.

“Well, I’m not. You may get on my nerves sometimes but that’s normal, everyone get’s on my nerves. You had a perfectly good reason to want to leave your parents. They weren’t accepting you for who you are and that’s unacceptable. I’m glad you came to stay with me because now we get to hang out all the time and I can rant to you about how much everything bothers me and you can tell me how everything makes you so happy all the time. I am one hundred percent, totally, not mad at you babe.”

Eddie smiles “Well that’s good. I’m glad you still love me even though I’m hard to deal with sometimes.”

“Of course I still love you. You’re my Sly and I’ll always love you.” Seamus says, looking away from Sly so the other doesn’t see his slight blush.

“Awe Seamus!” Eddie coos and leans over to plant a kiss on his boyfriends cheek as they continue to head home towards their house.


	43. Last Straw

Aleks can’t help but notice Kevin staring at him all class. He’s not sure why, because he and Kevin haven’t talked since last year. Maybe James said something to him? He doubts that, James never wants anything to do with Kevin.

As Aleks grabs his bag and says good bye to Aron until later that afternoon for their next class together, Aleks is stopped by a hand on his shoulder. He turns around and it’s Kevin.

“Hey Kevin, what’s up? Be quick though I got to get to PE.”

“Where’d you get that?” He says, sounding a little upset instead of angry for once. Aleks looks to where his finger is pointing and blushes slightly as he remembers he’s wearing the ring James got him.

Then he realizes it’s not Aron or Sly asking, it’s Kevin. His angry ex-boyfriend.

“Oh I just got it for a grad gift... from my grandma.”

“Why are you wearing it on your ring finger then?” Kevin asks, confused.

“Uh, I didn’t actually notice that until now-“ Aleks stars but luckily he’s cut off by the bell letting students know there next class has begun. “Oh shoot, I got to get to gym, see you Kevin.” Aleks says hurriedly and tries his best to get as far away from Kevin as fast as possible.

After gym class instead of going to his next class Aleks decides he needs to find James as fast as possible to disgust this ring situation. He finds him and Joe at his locker, probably planning some stupid graduation prank that Aleks knows he’ll probably get dragged into being a part of with Jordan busy studying.

“James we need to talk, like right now.” Aleks tells him, grabbing him by the elbow and pulling him away from his smaller friend. James shouts something at Joe, probably a goodbye, but Aleks isn’t quite sure.

“What’s wrong babe?” James asks when it’s just the two of them and no one else in sight

“Kevin saw the ring. Dude, what if he goes nuts again and tries to kill you?”

“I’m sure everything will be fine Aleks. Besides it’s not like he goes to parties anymore after that incident last year anyways.” James says trying to calm his boyfriend.

Aleks tries his best to believe what James is saying but he still can’t trust Kevin after everything that’s happened.

“Besides what did he even say when he saw it? If he didn’t freak out he must be somewhat okay with it.” James adds

“Actually I kind of lied and told him it was a gift from my grandma.” Aleks admits, earning a laugh out of James.

“Did he really buy that?”

“I guess so. I ran off to class before he could really say much more.” Aleks tells him.

They spend the rest of that class sitting behind the stairwell and talking about anything and everything like always until the bell rang for lunch and the two headed out for pizza.

Aleks thought that was that. Kevin never said anything else about the ring and Aleks was pretty sure he had moved on over it. Until that Friday night.

Aleks did get roped into helping James and Joe with their graduation prank. Spencer was there two so it wasn’t as bad, plus Aleks’ convinced Dex to come with lying and telling him they were going suit shopping for the ceremony in a week.

“I can’t believe you bought that.” Joe laughs “Like any of us were going to buy new suits. Jordan or Dan, sure, but us, yeah right.”

Dex rolls his eyes “Whatever okay. At least I know what your guys’ real priorities in life are now.” He grumbles out

Joe turns around to open the cage on chicks and starts passing them to James, who paints each of their little yellow bodies red to look like blood and then passes them to Spencer who hides them around the classroom.

“Where the hell did you even get all these chicks anyways?” Aleks asks

“Well the home ec class used them for their fake baby project and when it was done a truck came to pick them up. I got the number off the back of the truck and called them and said I needed some chicks for ‘my school’s home ec class’ and they dropped them of at the diner on Tuesday, no questions asked.” Joe explains

“You just kept them in your house this whole week?” Spencer questions

“Yeah I hid them in the spare bathroom but let’s just say that my mom found them pretty quickly when a few escaped.”

The guys laugh as they continue to work on the chicks.

“How did you even get them home from the diner? You take a bus.” Dex brings up a few moments later.

“It was a really awkward bus ride home.” Joe says with a chuckle.

As they keep painting and hiding the chicks Aleks decides he has to go to the bathroom. James offers to go with him but he lets him stay with his friends as Aleks wanders off into the dark, empty school.

He does his business in the bathroom and as he opens the door and turns the corner to start heading back to James, Kevin is standing right there.

“Kevin, what are you doing here?” Aleks asks, a little worried as he’s all alone and his friends probably couldn’t hear him from where he was if he screamed.

“That isn’t a grad ring. You got that from James. I know you did. I looked it up online and I found the store he got it from and everything. You can’t hide it Aleks.”

“Okay, so what? Were engaged Kevin! What does it matter to you?” Aleks shouts back at him. Because in Aleks defense, it’s his and James’ business and not Kevin’s.

“It matter’s because I love you Aleks! Why do you want to ruin your life and marry that asshole when we could get back together? Please Aleks I know you still love me I know were still meant to be together.”

Aleks backs up “Kevin what are you talking about? I hate you. You broke my heart and almost broke my face! You treat me and my boyfriend like shit I want nothing to do with you!”

“James has just put all of that in your head! He’s making you think that you love him but you really still love me. I know you do Aleks.”

As Kevin continues to rant on about how Aleks is still in love with him Dex turns the corner. He had gone looking for Aleks who had been taking forever to get back and when he saw what was going on, he tip toed back down the hallway to get James and the others.

“James, guys, come on, Kevin’s here!” He whispers as he enters the classroom. The three give him a strange look but follow behind Dex as they rush down the hall, trying their best not to be loud and have Kevin hear they were there as well.

“Seriously Kevin, I don’t still love you. James and I are getting married and I love him, not you.” Aleks repeats again, hoping Kevin will give up.

“Kevin, what the fuck?” James shouts when he sees what’s going on.

“James admit your brain washing him!” Kevin shouts back.

As Kevin says this James realizes there is seriously something wrong with Kevin. This isn’t normal. It’s been over a year since he and Aleks had broken up he shouldn’t be this distraught about it still.

Then James remembers Kevin coming to his house and breaking in that one time. Maybe Kevin is having some sort of mental break down.

“Kevin,” James repeats as he comes up beside him “Aleks and you are over. You have to accept that. He and I are moving to Minnesota and you’re staying here. Aleks isn’t staying with you. You two are over Kevin.”

Kevin stares a James for a long moment and James is sure he can see the anger bubbling inside of him. But then suddenly he sees Kevin’s face soften. He turns to Aleks then.

“Goodbye Aleks.” He says before he turns around without another word and leaves

Aleks shudders “That was so creepy.” He tells James as he follows him back to the classroom. James nods, but knows that finally, Kevin has realized Aleks is moving on and hopefully he will too.


	44. Sorrow

The day of the finals came fast than expected and suddenly James was wishing he had more time. This was his last chance to see his friends before they would all go off to different schools and jobs across the country. Honestly he was worried. He didn’t like so much change happening so fast. But luckily he had Aleks by his side to help him cope with how fast things were happening in his life.

He took a deep breath before he entered the classroom for his first test. He studied his ass off and he needed this to go well for him. Inside he saw Stefani and Dan, Dan still cramming with just seconds remaining before the teacher handed out the tests, and Stefani who was oddly enough texting instead of rushing to go through her notes again like James would expect from her.

“Stefani’s not studying? Wow, have things ever changed.” James gaped out loud earning a huff from said Stefani beside him, not even glancing away from her phone.

“Jordan’s freaking out. He missed so much when he dropped out for those couple of months that he barley had any time to study since he was catching up. I’m really worried, what if he doesn’t graduate with us?”

James can’t really imagine not graduating with his best friend. He silently hopes Jordan does well because he doesn’t want to see him have to repeat this year again. He pulls out his phone and though Jordan may not see it until after his first test he sends his friend a ‘Good luck’ text before shutting off his phone and turning his attention to Mr. Kale as he explains how this test will work.

The first test goes by in a flash and then the second and then the third and then it’s a break for lunch so the students can refresh their brains. James sighed as he and Seamus headed down the hall, his head pounding,

“Want to go get something to eat before are math exam?” Seamus asks as they stop at his locker to grab his keys. James shakes his head.

“I’m too stressed out. I got to do well on this math test or they’ll never let me into university.”

Seamus nods and gives his friend a pat on the shoulder. “Maybe you should go see Aleks, I’m sure he’d help calm you down.””

James nods, giving Seamus a small smile as he turns and heads towards the library where he knows Aleks will be trying his best to cram for his tests this afternoon.

He finds him there with Sly, Aron, and Joe.He sees Aron going over Physics with Joe and Sly and Aleks reviewing their calculus. Aleks looks up when he sees James coming towards them and smiles.

“You look so tired.” Aleks coos as he pulls out the chair on his left for James to join Sly and him. James groans and drops his head to the table.

“I am. I swear I answered all the questions on my drama test wrong. I don’t even remember learning half that stuff.”

Aleks laughs lightly from beside him and runs his free hand through James curls, massaging his scalp. “I’m sure you doing fine James.”

James doesn’t answer, just enjoys the nice feeling on his head.

He feels like he could fall asleep like this but jumps up suddenly when he remembers something important.

Jordan.

“Have any of you guys talked to Jordan all day?” James asks, sounding slightly panicked that he has yet to hear from his friend all day.

He feels for Jordan because he’s struggling so much because it wasn’t really his fault this all happened. It was really Max’s, which by the way James never found out if he ever even apologized to Jordan or not for what he did.

The four around him shake their heads no. James gets up from his seat then, bows down to give Aleks a kiss on the forehead before excusing himself to go find Jordan.

He searches the halls, the cafeteria, under the stairwells, even the bathrooms but no Jordan in sight. James groans and is just about to pull his phone out to call the lug when Artist Joe walks into the bathroom James was just finishing texting.

“Joe, have you seen Jordan?”

“Yeah actually,” The artist replies “Dex and I saw him sitting in the football field when we were leaving for lunch. I think he was still there when we got back.”

James nods “Thanks Joe, I owe you.” He shouts as he rushes out to the field

He finds Jordan just lying in the grass beside the fence in the far field. Being out here makes him reminisce so much, his heart hurting with how he suddenly is realizing how much he’ll miss this place.

“What are yeah doing there, buddy?” James asks as he settles down into the grass beside Jordan.

“Contemplating jumping off the roof of the school.”

James snorts “You can’t being doing that bad.”

“I am. These tests are doing to be the death of me James. That or how my parents will react when I tell them I got to repeat grade 12.”

“You’ll be fine Jordan. I believe in you. We all do, even Stef.”

“Thanks.”

“This is all Max’s fault. I swear to-“

“Max has been the one who’s been helping me catch up.” Jordan admits. James turns to stare at his friend “After we made up I asked him if he could help me learn everything I had missed. He did a really good job I just ran out of time. You can’t blame him for this, this was all me.”

“Yeah but I wish this wasn’t happening to you. You deserve better.”

“Thanks James.” Jordan says, sitting up to give his friend a hug

“Anytime.”

The bell rang to call the students back into the school for their next tests. Jordan stood up and helped James to his feet. They walked together into the school until Jordan ran into Stefani and departed ways to follow her to their next class.

“Good luck!” James shouted before turning to head towards his next class.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only 3 more chapters to go! Thanks for reading guys!


	45. The Results

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I'm starting my next Creature fic tonight I'm not sure if it will be a high school AU again or not but I'm thinking of doing Immortalanex & Novafox as well as Koova and more! What do you guys think? Will you read? Let me know if you got suggestions!

“James calm down, we’re almost there.”

James grumbled from the passenger seat, trying his best to keep from tapping his foot again. Aleks was driving them to the school that morning, having stayed the night the night before, so they can go and get there test results. James was nervous because he can’t get that awful feeling out of his head that he failed.

They pull up in their normal spot outside the theatre and James sees Dan’s and Seamus’ and Jordan’s cars parked beside them. He smiles and then frowns because that’s the last time he will ever see his friends cars parked like that together.

“What’s wrong?” Aleks asks

“This is the last time were probably all going to really be together again. I mean were going off to a different school in a different state, Sly’s probably leaving, Stefani and Spencer and Joe and Aron will all be gone, Dex is going back to England, I’ll never have all of my friends together again and I hate that feeling.”

“I know. But it’s a whole new start. Plus you’re not going to stop being friends just like that, especially now with social media. You’ll talk to all of your friends over text everyday and complain about how I’m decorating our dorm room awfully or how I burnt are anniversary supper. And I’m sure when we get married they’ll all be around for that. And who says we can’t come back here when were done school anyways?”

James smiles “You always know how to make me feel better.”

“Shut up.” Aleks says back, trying to hide his slight blush from James complimenting him

James leans over and kisses Aleks on the cheek before he goes to open the car door and head into his high school for the last time.

All their friends are standing in the hallway, waiting for James and Aleks, the last two as always, to show up so they can all get there results together. James snickers when he sees Ze and Chilled holding hands for the first time in public and elbows Seamus in search for some sort of explanation.

“They’re out now?”

Seamus shrugs and smiles “I guess so.”

The group decides then, once they’ve all caught up, that they should get this over with. Some of the smarter of the group go in first, Aron, Sly, Dan, Stefani, Ze and Max, all knowing that there was no chance in them doing as bad as some of the rest could have. Then went Chilled and Spencer and Aleks, and then Dex and Joe.

James took a deep breath as he followed Seamus into the administrator’s office, hoping for anything but the worst.

“Name please?” She asks

“James Richard Wilson Jr.”

“Of course.” She says, pausing to look up his name. “James, you got an A- in English, an A in Drama, a B+ in Law, an A in Math, and an A+ in Biology.”

James sighs, a huge relief off his shoulders “Thank you so much.” He says Turning to Seamus

“I got an A+ dude!”

“Holy crap.” Seamus replies “See, you had nothing to worry about.”

As the two head back out James rushes over to Aleks to give him a huge hug and share his great news with everyone.

As the group was wrapping up their congratulations to James and Seamus, Jordan slowly exited the office. His shoulders were slouched and he looked down.

“Oh no,” Stefani murmurs when she sees the depressing look upon her boyfriends face. The group is about to start sympathizing for Jordan, Stefani already reaching out to pull him into a hug when he stops in his tracks.

He looks down for a moments and then back up at the group, a look of disbelief gracing his face now.

“I passed.”

The whole group then erupted in cheers and happiness, running up to congratulate Jordan, Dan and Seamus pulling him into a hug and James giving him a pat on the back.

After awhile more of celebrating the group decided to go their separate ways, until their graduation ceremony however. James and Jordan walked more behind the rest, laughing as Sly and Aleks got into one of their stupid play fights again.

As they continued towards there parking spots Max slowed down to talk to Jordan.

“Hey, congrats man. I mean it, you deserve this. I hope you get your construction job now.” Max says

Jordan smiles “Thanks Max. And thanks so much for all the help, I could have never done this without you.”

“Hey, I owed you after what I did.”

“You never actually did anything though. It was my stupidity, really Max.”

“So were cool?” The lad asks. Jordan nods

“Yeah were cool.”


	46. Goodbye?

Jordan and James decided the day after their graduation ceremony to offer Dex a ride to the airport, Aleks getting sucked into a family thing couldn’t take him so the two best friends decided it would be a nice last outing before the went there separate ways.

“We’re going to miss your stupid British ass. You better come back sometime.” Jordan tells Dex who’s pretty much asleep in the back seat. The Britt sighs happily and waves them off, hoping to sleep for the next 20-40 minutes on the way to the airport.

“So,” James starts “When’s your new job start?”

“New job?” Jordan asks, confused.

“Yeah, your construction thing.”

“Oh actually, I didn’t take that job.”

James gives him a look

“I put so much work into getting this stupid diploma I might as well get some use out of it. Plus Stefani still hadn’t picked a school so-“

“Wait what do you mean?”

“I got into the University of Minnesota. We’re coming with you guys.”

James smiles brightly at his friend “Really?”

“I couldn’t imagine losing you as a friend and not getting to see you and that idiot Russian’s face every day. Plus if I get some degree in contracting I can make more money plus build me and Stef a nice house when we move back here one day.”

“I couldn’t imagine losing you either.” James replies, turning to look out the window. Thinking about the future and what it awaits for him.


	47. Bliss (Was It All For Nothing?)

Bonus

James smiled, tightening his tie one last time and checking his hair in the mirror.

“Are you getting nervous yet?” Seamus joked from behind him

“Yes, I am freaking out. This is the most important day of my life I can’t fuck anything up.”

“You used to say the day you and Aleks finally kissed was the biggets day of your life.” Seamus reminisced

“Well this is bigger.” James replies

10 minutes later the door to the room James and Seamus were occupying opened, Joe peaking his head inside and calling the two to come out.

“Were ready!”

The music began and James couldn’t stop from smiling as he watched Sly and Seamus, Dan and Liz, and Jordan and Stefani walk down the aisle towards him. He smiled brighter when he saw Aleks turn the corner, arms linked with his fathers, and heading towards him.

“Finally.” Aleks huffed once he got to the front

The priest began to speak and then the two resited there vows they had written and then the words ‘You may now kiss the groom’ were being announced and finally they were indeed ‘Mr & Mr Wilson-Marchant’.

“I can’t believe I have to have your stupid last name now for the rest of my life.” Aleks grumbled as he ripped his suit shoes off, sick off wearing such tight and fancy clothes all day. James snickered and hopped onto the bed beside him, smiling brighter as Aleks lied down beside him and tangled their fingers together

“You’ll get used to it.”

“Do I really have a choice?”

“No, you really don’t.” James chuckles out

“I still can’t believe were actually married now. Like you’re my husband now. Forever.”

“I can’t believe I’m one of those cliché people who can say the first time I kissed my husband was in a football field in 11th grade. And that I took you to prom and we graduated together and were going to finish University together and have beautiful babies.”

“Are first kiss was not in a football field...”

“Yes it was! That day Kevin’s friend caught us! When did you think it was?”

“That night I came over to your house in 9th grade and we kissed In your bedroom. After Seamus and Dan had passed out when we tried pulling an all nighter and we went upstairs and I kissed you! Do you not remember that?”

James pauses. He had kissed Aleks in the ninth grade?

“Weren’t you dating Kevin then?”

“No, that was before that. I kissed you hoping you would realize I liked you. Instead you never did anything and when Kevin started flirting with me I moved on hoping you would either get jealous or confess your feelings for me finally.”

“You had feelings for me back in the ninth grade?”

“YES! How did you not know this?”

“We could have been dating, since the ninth grade. None of that bullshit with Kevin ever had to happen...”

Aleks nods

“I can’t believe this. You’re the worst.”

Aleks laughs “To bad you’re stuck with me forever now.”

James laughs himself, as Aleks rolls on top of him and places a kiss upon James lips “I guess so. And boy am I lucky.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR READING I LOVE YOU ALL FOLLOW ME ON TUMBLR   
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> ENJOY THE REST OF YOUR NIGHT!

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr @ mithc-marners.tumblr,com or twitter @dewydoughty or instagram @d.oughty !


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